# Orange pikes



## Joels fish (Nov 17, 2007)

Saw a pike at the LFS today simply labled as orange pike. Has anyone (cough..DwarfPike.. cough cough..) kept these , cause I'm having a hard time finding info on them.

Thanks


----------



## dwarfpike (Jan 22, 2008)

Haven't kept them no ... hard to fit a nasty 14" pike into a 38 gallon tank! :lol:

Beautiful pikes though, trying looking up pics under 'xingu 1' as they are usually sold as orange or orange dwarves as babies. They do go through a color change to adult though and are generally considered one of the most beautiful pikes as adults ... well top 10 anyway. :thumb:

http://www.cichlid-forum.com/profiles/species.php?id=1426

http://www.geocities.com/napavalley/5491/xingu1page.html


----------



## Joels fish (Nov 17, 2007)

Wow , and the kid at the store said it was a dwarf! They did have a few dwarfs in stock , I hope he was just mixed up on which ones I was talking about or someones in for a big surprise one day. 
Thanks for the links , I think I'll pass on these guys .


----------



## dwarfpike (Jan 22, 2008)

They are often sold as orange dwarves here in seattle too. Unfortunately, one of my coworkers got one for his 55 ... and it soon it was the only inhabitant. The convicts, firemouths, jag and green terror didn't stand a chance.

What dwarves did they have? Some of them end up being very colorfull. You might want to take a peek at *Blairo*'s thread on wallacii pikes, I think I've posted 3 differant dwarf pike piccies up in there.


----------



## Joels fish (Nov 17, 2007)

They had Belly crawlers and what looked like Strigatta but the Strigatta weren't labeled so it's hard to say for certain thats what they were. Many of the pike juvies look a lot alike to me so I have a hard time telling them apart.


----------



## dwarfpike (Jan 22, 2008)

Yeah, that is kinda of a pain with pikes. Most of the pikes in the same group look almost identical as young ... ie sax group mostly look similiar, all strigatta, most dwarves, ect ect. Makes it hard when buying them unless the dealer/wholesaler knows their stuff.

Bellycrawlers stay small (though not dwarves) and are very underrated. Neat fish, very personable, and get some subtle coloration. Seen some males with some nice reds and such.


----------



## imusuallyuseless (Dec 28, 2005)

Nothing useful to add here...

Definately miss my 'xingu I' though. Hope to aquire another at some point, but they aren't as prevalent in texas as they seem to be in other parts of the country :?


----------



## Scatocephalus (Mar 26, 2003)

Joels fish said:


> They had Belly crawlers and what looked like Strigatta but the Strigatta weren't labeled so it's hard to say for certain thats what they were. Many of the pike juvies look a lot alike to me so I have a hard time telling them apart.


The fish that looked like _Cr. strigata_ were most likely _Cr. sp. "Venezuela"_. Both _sp. "Belly Crawler"_ and _sp. "Venezuela"_ are collected in the same area of Columbia and are often imported together. The true _strigata_ comes from thousands of miles away in Brazil and are actually very rare in the hobby.

With that said, _sp. "Venezuela"_ is one of the largest pike species out there. Unfortuantely they are pretty plain too. Not much color to speak of.


----------



## Joels fish (Nov 17, 2007)

The shop in question seems to be more specialized towards salt water and dwarf cichlids. Their dwarf selection is great if you like rams , apistos, and other SA dwarfs but their selection of other cichlids is a bit more dubious. Frequently mislabled and over priced($20 for hybrid peacocks for example) and often not the highest quality to start with either. They do have some gems on occasion and sometimes some real hard to come by species. Funny thing is though that the store is full of really knowledgeable folks but since most of them are "specialists" with certain species , they don't always have the best knowledge for the particular fish I want and the guy that does never seems to be there when I am. With that said I dont think anyone there knew anything about the pikes they had from what I'm getting from all this. And yes, the strigata were very plain looking and dull. 
I think if I ever decide to get any dwarf pikes they are not coming from that store.


----------



## css virginia (Jan 29, 2007)

I have kept Orange Pikes. They can and will become more aggressive and will devour their tankmates.....even the ones you think are too big to swallow.


----------



## dwarfpike (Jan 22, 2008)

Dwarf pikes are becoming more popular, but then pikes overall have seen a large increase in the last couple of years. I've seen 4 differant species so far this year, where the last two or three years there has been nothing dwarf wise except _Cr. compressiceps_.

The dwarves are great, though I might be biased on that account *laughs at peers at my handle.* They stay small, still have attitude and even beg like large pikes but can still be kept with apistos and other dwarf cichlids and even tetras, at least the high bodied ones. They don't dig, and breeding is a challange instead of being riduculously easy.

Scat is most likely right about the ven's, they are the most common of the larger pikes around here at least. That and Scat is much better at larger pikes than I.


----------



## Scatocephalus (Mar 26, 2003)

dwarfpike said:


> Dwarf pikes are becoming more popular, but then pikes overall have seen a large increase in the last couple of years. I've seen 4 differant species so far this year, where the last two or three years there has been nothing dwarf wise except _Cr. compressiceps_.
> 
> The dwarves are great, though I might be biased on that account *laughs at peers at my handle.* They stay small, still have attitude and even beg like large pikes but can still be kept with apistos and other dwarf cichlids and even tetras, at least the high bodied ones. They don't dig, and breeding is a challange instead of being riduculously easy.
> 
> Scat is most likely right about the ven's, they are the most common of the larger pikes around here at least. That and Scat is much better at larger pikes than I.


Thank you! 8) I do have some lunkers!!




























Are you familiar with a store called A PLace For Pets in WA? They had notos listed at Aquabid this morning and from the picture it looked like the real thing so I went ahead and hit the "buy it now" button. I'm hoping to get a trio but haven't heard anything back yet.

In fact, now that I think about it, the lents I have pictured above came from the same place!!


----------



## dwarfpike (Jan 22, 2008)

Scat - I love your lents ... am glad you decided to keep them ... and yes, I live there it seems!! :lol: I was the one that alerted Jeremy/Peanut to their cinctas ... they also have very small baby lucius atm ...

and their noto's and wallacii are all male ... it's where I got both species, at least they were all males last time I was there about 3 weeks ago. They may have gotten more in though. Kevin the owner knows dwarf pikes are my speciality, he ordered in the wallacii so I could get some females as I already had two males but out of the group that came in, there were only two females that I grabed. There were no females in the noto's, though I bought one it turned out to be a wallacii female, orange dorsal spot instead of red but alas I lost that one when she slipped the divider into my male noto's side.


----------



## Scatocephalus (Mar 26, 2003)

dwarfpike said:


> Scat - I love your lents ... am glad you decided to keep them ... and yes, I live there it seems!! :lol: I was the one that alerted Jeremy/Peanut to their cinctas ... they also have very small baby lucius atm ...
> 
> and their noto's and wallacii are all male ... it's where I got both species, at least they were all males last time I was there about 3 weeks ago. They may have gotten more in though. Kevin the owner knows dwarf pikes are my speciality, he ordered in the wallacii so I could get some females as I already had two males but out of the group that came in, there were only two females that I grabed. There were no females in the noto's, though I bought one it turned out to be a wallacii female, orange dorsal spot instead of red but alas I lost that one when she slipped the divider into my male noto's side.


Hmmm... the Aquabid entry showed a male but said they could sex them and send pairs. They said they had just 6 fish all total. Guess we'll see what response I get from Grey about getting females.


----------



## Scatocephalus (Mar 26, 2003)

I'm also looking for some Black Morpho Tetras, P. weitzmani. You wouldn't happen to know if they have any, would you?


----------



## dwarfpike (Jan 22, 2008)

The tetras don't look familiar, but then I do tend to focus on the dwarf cichlids and the SA/CA cichlids.

They could have gotten more in during the last 3 weeks of course, our wholesaler still has both species. I might need to head down, I need a female noto to go with my male. It's a long drive so with gas prices I usually go every 2-3 weeks or so and get check if they do have the females for ya or not.

The males were deffinately true noto's though, though the first dorsal fins aren't black they are divided and extended. I would put up the pick of my male, but it's dorsal isn't extended though you can see the extensions folded down. You've probably seen the pic over on MFK.

The wallacii are the new ones from the Rio Atapabo in Colombia, not the ones from Guayana just in case you were curious.


----------



## Scatocephalus (Mar 26, 2003)

dwarfpike said:


> The tetras don't look familiar, but then I do tend to focus on the dwarf cichlids and the SA/CA cichlids.
> 
> They could have gotten more in during the last 3 weeks of course, our wholesaler still has both species. I might need to head down, I need a female noto to go with my male. It's a long drive so with gas prices I usually go every 2-3 weeks or so and get check if they do have the females for ya or not.
> 
> ...


Who is the wholeasaler? Cichlid exchange?

Grey from A Place For Pets just e-mailed me back and said that he thinks there are a few extra females. He's going to check and get back to me. I'm pretty stoked about these guys. I've been looking for a long time. I mean, what's not to love?!?


----------



## dwarfpike (Jan 22, 2008)

Yup, Cichlid Exchange. Are you local?

I know, noto's are the prettiest dwarves IMO ... though like I said, this race of noto (at least my male) doesn't have the black dorsal extensions, but deffinately has the extensions though in the pic it is hard to see.










He has almost krib like pastel coloration.


----------



## Scatocephalus (Mar 26, 2003)

dwarfpike said:


> Yup, Cichlid Exchange. Are you local?
> 
> I know, noto's are the prettiest dwarves IMO ... though like I said, this race of noto (at least my male) doesn't have the black dorsal extensions, but deffinately has the extensions though in the pic it is hard to see.
> 
> ...


Nope, not local. Just been around a long time. 

What a nice little fish. I can't wait!!


----------



## dwarfpike (Jan 22, 2008)

Thanks, it was the best shot I got of any of my pikes.

Now just need to find him a little girl and then set up a nice 40 or 60 gallon breeder rio ***** style like your big tank and see if I can get these little rascals to lay eggs.


----------



## misplacedsooner (Apr 13, 2007)

scat, not to hijack but want to say i love the lents you got....truely hott crens.
i do keep some xingu 1s and they can be a very aggressive lot indeed. i also have some sveni which dont have the aggression level as the xingu 1s and dont grow as big. also i have a sweet johanna female thats 11 inches and soon will be adding a nice male for her and hope she doesnt kill this one. 
i believe the notos are the way to go for your tank, they are sweet.
mike


----------

