# Rainbowfish - Glossolepis Genus



## Rainbowric

I like the Glossolepis Genus species almost as much as the Chilatherina Genus. You really need to be dedicated to raise most of the species of this Genus. Most do not really look like much until they are at least a year old. Then you are lucky! When fully mature though they certainly grab people's attention in the tank. You don't see them much as they do take a long time to grow out and are a little more difficult to raise. You would think that such a large fish would produce a large fry. They are small and quite weak when first born. The only Glossolepis species that does not quite fall into this catagory is the pseudoincisus or Millenium Rainbowfish. Most of the strains of the pseudoincisus are quite prolific and they most color up quickly. I am not going to say much in this thread about the pseudo*incisus* or the incisus as Greg has filled you in on them and as far as the incisus there has not been many around for some time ... probably because people prefer the pseudo over it.

I am going to start with one of the greatest Glossolepis and that is the *Glossolepis wanamensis*. BTW it is extinct in the Wild!










This would have been my first pair ... just over a year old. This male really did not start to grow his long drapping anal fin ( which the wanamensis is popular for ) until he was 2 years old. I will show you a picture of him later but why I am showing this picture is to show you the male and female together.

For some reason my wanamensis had more color when they were young then when they got older. This young fellow ....










I may be young but I am bigger than that catfish! 










Many say they have problems getting them to breed .... well these two young girls have these three boys a going already. However they are about 8 months old already and any of the other species of Rainbowfish would be quite a bit bigger already.










I had a lot of fun with these young ... almost 100 of them! 

Now lets look at them a little older..... say about 14 or 15 months of age!



















Well my 3 year old dad .... he spends most of his day in with my Glossolepis dorityi ... keeping them in line.










Time to move on to another Glossolepis species and that is the *Glossolepis dorityi. * My dorityi comes from Gary Lang who collected wild caught dorityi at Lake Nenggwambu....... So the name of this particular fish is ....

*Glossolepis dorityi "Lake Nenggwambu"* and he is a F1










Female much the same shape as the wanamensis ... just a little lighter in color.










This is a really nice fish and one of the few available in Canada that is an F1.










Now for my favorite .... he is not an F1 but an F2. Very strong and healthy fish. One of my customers put one of these fish in at 2.5 in. with his 4 inch wanamensis and the wanamensis was dead the next day! 

*Glossolepis multisquamata "Pagai" * Yes Pagai we have heard that name before .... it is where Gary Lange collected the Melanotaenia praecox "Pagai" and it is where the C. fasciata "Pagai" in my thread on Chilatherina was collected.

*Glossolepis multisquamata "Pagai "*










Female multisquamata "Pagai' Yep you have to be real careful about getting this one mixed up with the dorityi female!










Another bow that there is not to many of the colors of the rainbow that he is missing! And when these fellow start to display ...wow!










Hope that you have enjoyed seeing just a few of the great Glossolepis species available to the hobby!


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## Scotmando

Very nice collection! You are an inspiration with your rainbows as well as your photography. Keep the beauty coming! Thank you.


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## SwimmyD

*Ric does have the best rainbows!*

Ric- I wish my wannamensis looked like yours. But mine is a wanna-mutt-sis.
I really liked his colour in the LFS, but he did not have the long fins. I thought he would grow them out later but when I did more research I realized that the wannamuttsis will never grow long fins. He does get the nice yellow blaze though. His girl died shortly after we got her, so he would compete for the other females. Sometimes he would go so yellow/gold he looked like a goldfish. However we are a little short on females now, so the colour thing has not been as intense with these boys.

Here the GTA it is rare that anything other than the boesmani, kutubu, praecox and glossoincisus are sold in the lfs. In almost 2 years I've only seen herbertaxelrodis once, and psuedoincisis once. If there is anything else, they are complete mutts like my wannamuttsis. We never get these fancy ones...but i guess its like killifish right? You got get in on the rainbow scene and start ordering eggs or 6 packs!

But omg your fish are amazing. Wish you lived close by so you could give a tour! 
Thanks for sharing!


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## Bwhiskered

Big Al's in Mississauga often has Herbertaxlerodi as well as a good number of other species. Don't you visit your local fish store?


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## SwimmyD

Yup, I'm always at BA's Mississauga picking up supplies, and I always check the bows. But like I said, most are labelled incorrectly and are also most definitely hybrids. Their Trifasciata, Goyder rivers, and Bleheri are hybrids, including the wannamensis I picked up. Even the boesmanis are questionable sometimes - their colour lines and colour diffrentiation are not marked properly (taking into account that they are not in the perfect environnment). The madagscars look true, and the pseudoincisus and herbertaxelrodis were there for the for the first time that I saw in the last 2 months. But often Ive seen their glossoleptis incisus sold as psuedoincisus. You can tell by the sheen of the scales. If you start seriously getting into bows, you start to appreciate having pure bred strains, and also the unusual and more rare breeds like Rics. However, even if you don't keep pure breds with locations (none of of ours have locations) there is still a lot to appreciate with these fish!


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## Scotmando

Now I heard 18 months back that Jeff Burch from London was the Rainbow 'goto guy' here in Ontario.

Groovyguy here on GTA Aquaria initiated a 'Rainbow group buy' but cancelled it a week later for whatever reason. There's a nice list of rainbows available in one of the posts.

I wonder if Jeff is still active in the Rainbowfish scene. Does anyone know Jeff?

Here a link with Jeff Burch's Rainbows & Heiko Bleher visit in London, Ontario Canada according to Heiko, Jeff has 'great Glossolepis wanamensis'. Pictures are great. Check it out.


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## Bwhiskered

SwimmyD said:


> Yup, I'm always at BA's Mississauga picking up supplies, and I always check the bows. But like I said, most are labelled incorrectly and are also most definitely hybrids. Their Trifasciata, Goyder rivers, and Bleheri are hybrids, including the wannamensis I picked up. Even the boesmanis are questionable sometimes - their colour lines and colour diffrentiation are not marked properly (taking into account that they are not in the perfect environnment). The madagscars look true, and the pseudoincisus and herbertaxelrodis were there for the for the first time that I saw in the last 2 months. But often Ive seen their glossoleptis incisus sold as psuedoincisus. You can tell by the sheen of the scales. If you start seriously getting into bows, you start to appreciate having pure bred strains, and also the unusual and more rare breeds like Rics. However, even if you don't keep pure breds with locations (none of of ours have locations) there is still a lot to appreciate with these fish!


I have to agree many of their rainbows are sterile hybrids. I found that on two occasions. Jeff Burch has been in rainbows for 30 plus years at least.


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## Rainbowric

SwimmyD said:


> Yup, I'm always at BA's Mississauga picking up supplies, and I always check the bows. But like I said, most are labelled incorrectly and are also most definitely hybrids. Their Trifasciata, Goyder rivers, and Bleheri are hybrids, including the wannamensis I picked up. Even the boesmanis are questionable sometimes - their colour lines and colour diffrentiation are not marked properly (taking into account that they are not in the perfect environnment). The madagscars look true, and the pseudoincisus and herbertaxelrodis were there for the for the first time that I saw in the last 2 months. But often Ive seen their glossoleptis incisus sold as psuedoincisus. You can tell by the sheen of the scales. If you start seriously getting into bows, you start to appreciate having pure bred strains, and also the unusual and more rare breeds like Rics. However, even if you don't keep pure breds with locations (none of of ours have locations) there is still a lot to appreciate with these fish!


I think if I was looking for Bows down east ... SwimmyD would be the person I would talk to!

I toured a couple of BA's in the East on one of my many trips to visit Jeff in London. They are much the same as the BA's here in Western Canada ...well except one in Edmonton who works closely with the local breeders and buys a lot of fish from us. Your analysis of the LFS situation SwimmyD is very accurate. However we can't lay all the blame on the LFS as they are only distributors and can only buy what is on there list. I have supplied a number of breeders to fish farms and they manage to screw them up and I have stopped as they use my name for advertising. The same can happen if you sell a fish to someone who does not know how to look after it. I hope to ...after posting a few more fish ... to add to Greg's thread more about care and how to make these fish look there best. As I would say maybe 2 out of 5 can do that and the other 3 can make them look pretty sad.



Scotmando said:


> Now I heard 18 months back that Jeff Burch from London was the Rainbow 'goto guy' here in Ontario.
> 
> Groovyguy here on GTA Aquaria initiated a 'Rainbow group buy' but cancelled it a week later for whatever reason. There's a nice list of rainbows available in one of the posts.
> 
> I wonder if Jeff is still active in the Rainbowfish scene. Does anyone know Jeff?
> 
> Here a link with Jeff Burch's Rainbows & Heiko Bleher visit in London, Ontario Canada according to Heiko, Jeff has 'great Glossolepis wanamensis'. Pictures are great. Check it out.


Jeff is still around but his job has changed in the last couple of years. He is now working very hard at his job with 12 hour shifts. After putting in 12 hour shifts then maintaining a large fish room, when days off happen you really don't feel like meeting and working with people about fish. Jeff is in about the same stage as myself ...both working hard to maintain 30 to 40 species (colonies) of bows ..... breeding now with not much for sale..... and cutting back as the load is to much to handle. Fortunately for me I have established a numer of breeders here in Western Canada and so therefore I don't need to keep as many species and breed as much. This year I have only breed 5 species which will be available this fall. Jeff is very dedicated to Rainbowfish and his primary focus is maintaining the colonies of species he has now. Most breeders I know start to fail at 10 to 15 species. There is only a handful of us that are in the 30 + species. Yep and we are nuts! 

I think one of the best ways to score some nice bows ... for which I did for many of mine is what Greg did! Now I might suggest to you to go back and read his thread if greater detail is required  but plan a trip to the USA. I will suggest to my wife ...Hey want to go down and do some shopping? I will contact one of the breeders in the US and they will ship a box of fish to the UPS depot in the city of your choice. Years ago the best breeders to buy from were in Western USA and today they are in Eastern USA. Most of mine comes from the East. They have to travel a lot further to get to me then they do to get to you! If the breeder is willing to ship over the border .... beware of him! Now today I have breeders from the US buying fish from me the same way as they come up to Canada.

Another very nice Glossolepis. It is very difficult to breed. I was going to post it's picture in a dwarf rainbowfish thread. A thread showing all the small rainbowfish that a person that can 't have a 4 foot tank to keep them in. Greg has shown you the Melanotaenia praecox which gets to just over 2 inches. But there is a Glossolepis species that remains at about the same size as the praecox. Well if a wanamensis has a really small fragile fry, what would the fry be like for a dwarf Glossolepis. This fish has been in the hobby for some time and it's common name is the spotted rainbowfish. It's full scientific name is ....

*Glossolepis maculosus*










They do not get much larger then 2 inches . Yep you could keep a little school of them in a planted 20 gallon tank...... and they are real little busy bodies.

A couple more shots of some of my young G. multisquamata ! Well like the wanamesis ... slow growers ... so these guys are about 9 months of age. Just over 2 inches .....










A very neat fish to watch as it matures out!










Oh I found a nic picture of the Glossolepis incisus. Hristo Hristov fish pop up quite often on the covers of fish magazines all over the world His photos definitely deserve to be recognized. He does share a lot of photos with us ...even prior to publishing. In my opinion he has the finest Glossolpis incisus in the world! I wish we had some of these here in North America.


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## Bwhiskered

Another beautiful small rainbow is Melanotaenia maccullochi [Skull Creek].


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## Rainbowric

Yes indeed it is one of the "many" smaller (dwarf) rainbowfish!

*Melanotaenia macculochi "Skull Creek"*









However this thread is for the *Glossolepis Genus *only .....

The maccullochi belongs to the *Melanotaenia Genus *which I will be posting soon.

I don't believe that there is a dwarf in the *Chilatherina Genus *and only the maculosus in the *Glossolepis Genus*. Many many in the *Melanotaenia Genus.*


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## SwimmyD

Bwhiskered said:


> Another beautiful small rainbow is Melanotaenia maccullochi [Skull Creek].


Nice Fish! Nice Fins! Nice Pic!



Rainbowric said:


> I think if I was looking for Bows down east ... SwimmyD would be the person I would talk to!


Thanks very much Ric, but I'm not so sure about that one. I'm not an expert by any means. I just read a lot on the internet, toured various forums, searched pictures, and always inspect very closely before I buy. I always check bows at every fish store I enter, to see if I can correlate what I've read with what I see. The only thing I can say for sure is that I have a pretty good eye for picking up on things. Except the wannamuttsis. Didn't read enough about that one...bought him because he was so pretty!! 



Rainbowric said:


> The same can happen if you sell a fish to someone who does not know how to look after it. I hope to ...after posting a few more fish ... to add to Greg's thread more about care and how to make these fish look there best. As I would say maybe 2 out of 5 can do that and the other 3 can make them look pretty sad.
> 
> There is only a handful of us that are in the 30 + species. Yep and we are nuts!
> 
> Oh I found a nic picture of the Glossolepis incisus. Hristo Hristov fish pop up quite often on the covers of fish magazines all over the world His photos definitely deserve to be recognized. He does share a lot of photos with us ...even prior to publishing. In my opinion he has the finest Glossolpis incisus in the world! I wish we had some of these here in North America.


It would be great if you add to Greg's rainbow thread and discuss care!! Post some pics there too!! We are interested!

I cant believe that you raise 30+ species. That is amazing. I'm afraid to ask how many tanks!!!!Thats a full time job!!

And I most definitely agree about Hristo Hristov's fish photography. He also takes the best pictures of the most beautiful killifish too!


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## Rainbowric

SwimmyD said:


> Thanks very much Ric, but I'm not so sure about that one. I'm not an expert by any means. I just read a lot on the internet, toured various forums, searched pictures, and always inspect very closely before I buy. I always check bows at every fish store I enter, to see if I can correlate what I've read with what I see. The only thing I can say for sure is that I have a pretty good eye for picking up on things. Except the wannamuttsis. Didn't read enough about that one...bought him because he was so pretty!!
> 
> It would be great if you add to Greg's rainbow thread and discuss care!! Post some pics there too!! We are interested!
> 
> I cant believe that you raise 30+ species. That is amazing. I'm afraid to ask how many tanks!!!!Thats a full time job!!
> 
> And I most definitely agree about Hristo Hristov's fish photography. He also takes the best pictures of the most beautiful killifish too!


Oh but you and Greg know much more then 90% of the people that buy bows from me! If one third knew as much then the part of finding homes for these little gems would not be so bad .... would make that part of the hobby much more pleasant for me. Believe me finding homes for them is not pleasant and probably one of the biggest reasons why many bow breeders are shutting down today!

I will enjoy very much adding some things to Greg's thread. He has a good start on some very important points. Little things like keeping a lid on the tank. I have a lot of customers coming back telling me about there fish that jumped out of the tank! The few talks I have been to with Gary Lange within the first 15 minutes he warns you need a tank lid....bows like to jump! .... yet we still today loose so many that way. BTW I have revived a few fish similar cases as to Greg's story of the praecox.

I have bred well over 40 different species and keep now about 30 ....but what many people must realize with many of us large collectors .... *we don't have 30 or 40 species for sale! * That would indeed be a full time job and we would need at least another 30 to 40 large tanks! I followed back on the post that Scotmando did indicating Groovyguy's rainbowfish group buy with Jeff Burch. It was about that time that both Jeff and I had the largest number of species. We were under the impression that importing of fish was going to get much more difficult ... thanks to our Government Customs and Regulations. We went crazy buying up every species we could get out hands on..... then shared for fear that if we lost one, the other would have back ups for it. We had very little time left for breeding and most of the time was spent just insuring that we had good healthy colonies of each species. If you would have come to Jeff's or my place at that time you might be lucky to find 4-8 species available for sale. The funny thing is they would have probably been the more rare species, the difficult ones to breed, and not nessessarily the ones you would want. I put up for sale Glossolepis multisquamata and I might sell 10 pairs. I put up Goyder Rivers or herbertaxlerodi's and they are gone quickly. We are sort of like the LFS in that sense that when you come to our place you don't see much stuff for sale, someone has been there already and bought the good stuff! You may see all of our breeding colonies .... many tanks of little fry from newborn to 1 inch but not many 1.5 to 2 inch looking prime! I start moving mine, the best of the bunch, out at about 1.5 to 2 inch very quickly, then the not so nice ones .... to the LFS. I haven't got much tank space to work with and it doesn't make sense for me to keep them around.

One of Alberta's breeders is a flower shop owner ...like Scot.... teaches Tai Chi .... and keeps telling customers ....Patience Grasshopper. If you decide today that you want ...say ...three pairs of the three different trifasciata's. If you got them in a year ... you would be doing good! Let your breeders know what you want and then have patience. And please when the breeder has gone through all that effort in getting you what you want and has quoted you ...say $20 or $25 a pair .... don't say well I am getting 3 pairs so how about a deal? My best customers would give me $100 for the 3 pairs that I quoted him $25 each for. I go through some major efforts getting fish for these customers. I may buy 6 pairs from a breeder friend of mine in Regina and get them shipped to Calgary for him. Sell him 3 pairs and find another customer that will take the other 3. or you can pay $20 to $30 for hybrids that may or may not last a year in your tank at the LFS, not to forget to mention some of the other unwanted stuff that might come in with that fish. Many of my pictures are fish that are 2 -4 years old and still spawning ....well weekly at least.


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## Rainbowric

*Glossolepis wanamensis - Emerald Rainbowfish*

Just took this pic of one of my older male wanamensis. He is only about 1.5 years old and I have had them two years before they start to develop the long drapping anal fin. There is a problem with that though as you don't see many with the long anal fin. If they are in a group the males will wear them off as they spar for females as this boy did until he was about a year old and I took him out. He now resides in a tank full of Melanotaenia species and they don't bother him and he doesn't bother them. His fins are starting to grow out nice. As a group the males can get rather aggressive when spawning is happening. This boy is displaying a little bit of the yellow strip down the nose as he was just displaying for his girl.










Until a couple of years ago it was thought that the G. wanamensis was gone from the USA. Sure lots of wana bees around but no one could say they had a pure wanamensis. Gary Lange and myself both worked with Jeff Burch who has the only remaining wanamensis left in North America. Gary's colony is cousins to mine. I shipped a group down to Mark Nicolson in the USA last year along with about 100 eggs for which he raised and distributed. So thanks to Mark and Gary the wanamensis is starting to come back in the USA.

For interest Gary put up for bid a couple of pairs of this wanamesis up for bid last year on Aquabid. Click on the link below to see what happened on that auction!

Oh yes and BTW Jeff Burch acquired his strain from Kevin Hosmer.

*Aquabid Auction for 2 pairs at about 1.5 inches - Glossolepis wanamensis!*


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## Rainbowric

This post is for you Greg!

In an earlier post in this thread I showed you some young G. multisquamata from Pagai Village. They were about 9 months for those shots. I have moved them now from there grow out tank into a 4 foot tank, sharing quarters with my C. bleheri. The bleheri are over 2 years old and these young multi's are just over a year. For the first week or so the multi's didn't show much color and were a little leary of the bleheri even though they are about the same size ~ 4 inches. Even submissive, this fish shows some nice colors.










There has been no comflict between the two species so far ... probably because they are two different Genus (family of Rainbowfish) , as I thought there might be as the multi females look quite similar to the bleheri girls. Yesterday I noticed the multi females are feeling comfortable in this tank and are starting to spawn and so the males are starting to show a little more color now. The red really starts to come out and as I have seen with the father during spawning they almost get purple.










These boys are just over a year old and still have a lot of maturing to go yet. The anal fins are quite long but are not a long as a G. wanamensis, and they don't stay together but start to rag out as they get older. My wanams rag out because of battle!










These are F3's as I obtained F2's from Gary Lange. The earlier post showing an adult male is a F2. Fortunately this species as I have noted so far is not near as aggressive as the wanamensis which is good as the wanamensis can start showing some battle wounds when they get this age.

But they do put on quite the display for the female when she is ready!










Nice working with fish this close to the wild. These fry are small when first hatched, smaller then most of the Melanotaenia and Chilatherina new borns, but they are strong if not stronger and are fun and easy to raise.

Note: SwimmyD the fry would be about the same size as your milleniums. Which reminds me, how is that little one of yours doing now that you have moved up the temperature?


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## Rainbowric

*Two year old Chilatherina bleheri & one year old Glossolepis multisquamata*


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## greg

Rainbowric said:


> This post is for you Greg!


Wow, the picture is some teaser! Very exciting...


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## SwimmyD

Well, my little millennium girl was warm for a while. Then we went to Michigan and I got just a few too many killifish! Whoops! So I needed her tank  (I know,I know). So she got moved to a shoebox for a couple of weeks until Greg got a great idea and out her in our giant freshwater sump! So she's swimming around with her praecox buddy, and our giant self cloning crayfish. So it's back to normal temperatures, and I guess it slowed her growth. But I feed her lots, and she's gotten a wee bit bigger. One day she will be able to eat those bigger pellets - and will be able to compete with the others!


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## SwimmyD

Oh ya, she will eventually go on the new rack in the new rainbow fry tanks. They will be kept at 80+ degrees. So far we have the rack, but not the tanks.....all in good time.....


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## Rainbowric

*Young Glossolepis wanamensis*

Just about two years ago I spawned out a couple hundred of the G. wanamensis. Panic in the USA and Canada that they were now extinct in the hobby as well as in the wild. Had to get a bunch of these out again, again thanks goes to Jeff for maintaining a pure colony of these.

Well they do have a nice strain going in captivity in Australia but getting fish from Australia, you might as well say they are extinct, especially since it is extinct from the wild in OZ and every effort they have made to restore it to the wild has failed.

I saved a group of the nicest ones from that breeding, unfortunately the fins on them all took quite a beating. Confinned in a tank with females ready to breed and you will see a lot of aggression and the fins do not heal nearly at all as they do on most of the bow species.

A fellow breeder who I sold a colony to gave me back a group of 3 pairs and I stuck them in a bottom tank in my fish room. Over the last 6 months I have been removing the odd female or male, to replentish other colonies by other breeders. Well I looked down the other day and saw this little guy and thought ..wow ... you are a real looker! So I have one 75 gallon tank that had 3 pairs of herberaxlerodi and 3 pairs of Affinis Pagwi in it. They were all young and not much more then 2 inches. This little wanamensis is going to feel like a king in this tank .... and he does .... about 3 inches ... give this fellow another 6 months to a year and he will be a poster boy ... no doubt!










He structs himself around this 75 as he owns it. Sure the Pagwi and the Herby's are little faster when it comes to catching food, so you got to make sure he gets his share.










I believe this to be an ideal enviroment for this species of fish to grow up into. Being from a different Genus he couldn't care less about the other species females and the Melanotaenia species couldn't care less about his girl. Much less aggression and hopefully this guy will grow up to display a nice long flowing anal fin like the real G. wanamensis has.


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## greg

Beautiful pictures of the wanamensis. Hard to believe he's going to get even better looking - already looks outstanding.


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## Rainbowric

greg said:


> Beautiful pictures of the wanamensis. Hard to believe he's going to get even better looking - already looks outstanding.


You right Greg .... why I was so excited when I brought him up from one of my lower grow out tanks. Generally G. wanamensis, or the G. multisquamata,  really never start to develope until 12 to 18 months .... 3.5 inches. This fellow will be getting extra good care from now on with no other males to spar with. I have had 3 or 4 collectors come into my fishroom over the last month, since I brought him up from one of the lower tanks, that have said ...Wow! where did he come from?

You can also notice the younger look in his head versus one of the older males that I previously posted. Also the hump up from the back of the head is just starting to develop on him. But what really starts to develop after 12 to 18 months is the fins!


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## dave pauls

I just read this thread... I have been away from this site for way to long. Hanging out on the rainbow fish forum like a sucker when the good stuff is here in my own back yard. Excellent thread. Your photos actually catch the colours and action of the fish.


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