# What is this guy?



## ILikeIke (Jun 30, 2014)

Hey Y'all,

I picked up 4 rescue fish from Craigslist, and they're not adjusting to their new home well. The two dark ones with light horizontal stripes I believe to be M. johanni males, and the bright yellow and pink/grey splotchy ones I think are M. estherae, female & male.










I'm trying to build a calm, harmonious tank, but these fish aren't getting along well. The little black/horizontal stripe one is hyper aggressive, and terrorized the pink/grey one so much, he was vertically hovering in the corner, which I read is a sign of extreme stress. The yellow one was doing the same, but also beating up on the pink/grey one.

First, am I correct in my identification of these fish? The pink/grey one is my favorite, but he was attacked so mercilessly over the first 2 days, he lost all his tail fin & most of his pelvic fins.










It got so bad, I removed & isolated the small black/stripe one & yellow. Pink/grey guy & big grey/stripe guy got along fine without the little [email protected]

Is there any way to build calm the aggressiveness? If I introduce some M.Johanni females, would that do the trick?

The fish were living in a 55 gallon, and were moved to a same sized tank.

Thanks in advance for all replies.


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## Hapguy63 (Feb 8, 2014)

its a male Melanochromis auratus. Looks like you have 2. They can be very aggressive to each other and other tank mates. Your tank looks too small to handle these types of fish with their aggressive behavior. Probably best to rehome them if possible


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## Kanorin (Apr 8, 2008)

The horizontal striped fish are Melanochromis auratus, which are even more aggressive than M. johanni.

I'm not speaking from personal experience, but rather from stories I've heard, but I doubt that you can do anything to curb the aggression of these in a 55 gallon tank.
People who successfully keep M. auratus (for 2 years or more) typically keep them in a 6 foot tank and at about a 1 male to eight or nine female ratio.

The OB fish that I see definitely could be a Met. estherae. Those, at about a 1m to 4f ratio, would likely work well in your 55 gallon.


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## ILikeIke (Jun 30, 2014)

What does OB mean? There's the pink/grey splotchy one visible in the second picture, and a bright yellow one in the upper left corner, first picture. Those Met. estherae? Why would the yellow one go after the pink/grey one? Is the pink/grey one a male?


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## Mcdaphnia (Dec 16, 2003)

ILikeIke said:


> What does OB mean? There's the pink/grey splotchy one visible in the second picture, and a bright yellow one in the upper left corner, first picture. Those Met. estherae? Why would the yellow one go after the pink/grey one? Is the pink/grey one a male?


OB refers to the genes for Barred. A normal zebra has two B genes to make a pair. So they are called BB zebras. The OB has only one normal barred gene and one dominant mutant gene that scatters the barred pattern into splotches. If the mutation were recessive as most mutations are, it would have been expressed as BB and Bb for zebras that don't show or don't carry the recessive gene and bb for the unbarred fish. But it does not work that way in this case. So the O symbolizes the absence of bars and the B symbolizes that this fish often carries one unexpressed gene for bars.


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## Mcdaphnia (Dec 16, 2003)

I first kept auratus in the early seventies. I bred them on and off for the next twenty years. They would be in high demand and shortly after, everyone would be breeding them and the price for juveniles would drop. Then no one would be breeding them. Suddenly someone would come a cross a photo of an auratus or see one somewhere in some holdout aquarist's tank and the demand would reappear. The utter nastiness of the males toward other mbuna and the tendency to kill any other males and then cross breed with their females always would win out over their reef fish beauty.


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## ILikeIke (Jun 30, 2014)

Wow. You guys really know a lot about this stuff.

I think now that the Yellow one is the male, and pink/grey splotchy one is a female because the yellow one would badger the pinkie, but when I took the yellow one out, the big auratus and little pinkie got along fine. But when I put the yellow guy back in, the big auratus has been going bonkers, chasing him all around.

The pink/grey one is my favorite, it's very calm, and colorful, so I'm going to build a tank around it. Which means removing the auratus, and introducing more female estherae.

Thanks for the help & do y'all know good tankmates for estherae? I'd like a little diversity in there.


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## johnnymarko (May 30, 2014)

I'm just going to echo what everyone else has said... m. auratus get real nasty, especially in a 55 gal tank...my first tank had a horrible mix of petco 'assorted african cichlids'...needless to say, when the m. auratus male and bumblebee male were full grown I had quite a violent tank....like, extremely violent...


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## nmcichlid-aholic (Mar 23, 2011)

FYI - for most of us simpletons that aren't geneticists, an easy way to remember what OB means is to just look at the markings it describes - OB = orange blotched.

Looking at the photo of your OB M. estherae, I would say it's most likely a male. It would be easier to tell if it's fins weren't so damaged, because a male will have longer anal and dorsal fins that are pointed at the ends. That said, the high amount of blue coloration in the dorsal is a common male characteristic - females rarely show much blue at all, if any. Keep up with your water changes and his fins should heal and grow back relatively soon.

So, as you've said, I would remove the auratus and the other red zebra if it's causing problems (which could be because they're both males), and look to add 3 or 4 female red zebras (M. estherae). Whether you get OB females or solid red (usually more of a pale orange/peach color) is up to you - they are available in both varieties.

As for suitable tankmates, try to avoid other Metriaclima species, as well as Melanochromis (too aggressive). Perhaps consider a Cynotilapia species, like C. zebroides Cobue or Jalo Reef, or Pseudotropeus socolofi or Iodotropheus sprengerae (rusties) - all of which should be kept in groups of 1 male and 3-4 females.

If you find something you're interested in getting, it's always a good idea to check compatibility here before you get them. Good luck!


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## Mcdaphnia (Dec 16, 2003)

nmcichlid-aholic said:


> FYI - for most of us simpletons that aren't geneticists, an easy way to remember what OB means is to just look at the markings it describes - OB = orange blotched.
> 
> Looking at the photo of your OB M. estherae, I would say it's most likely a male. It would be easier to tell if it's fins weren't so damaged, because a male will have longer anal and dorsal fins that are pointed at the ends. That said, the high amount of blue coloration in the dorsal is a common male characteristic - females rarely show much blue at all, if any. Keep up with your water changes and his fins should heal and grow back relatively soon.
> 
> ...


I was at the 1980 ACA Convention when the "orange blotch/orange blossom" thing started. One of the auctioneers was from the AKA and unfamiliar with cichlid names. She invented orange blossom on the spot. You don't need a degree in biology to say "ohbee". But if you are keeping cichlids as pets, you do have biology as a hobby, and you could possibly enrich your hobby by knowing a little about it.


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## nmcichlid-aholic (Mar 23, 2011)

Mcdaphnia said:


> nmcichlid-aholic said:
> 
> 
> > FYI - for most of us simpletons that aren't geneticists, an easy way to remember what OB means is to just look at the markings it describes - OB = orange blotched.
> ...


I wasn't trying to imply that knowing the genetics behind the OB designation wasn't interesting or worth knowing. I was just pointing out that for people who aren't real familiar with genetics or how dominant/recessive genes work and the mutations that result from them, there's an easy way to remember what OB means. I'm fairly knowledgeable about how genetics work, especially with how a dominant or recessive trait will pass from generation to generation - years ago I bred Burmese Pythons for a living, and dealt with some popular recessive traits like albino, green, etc. Granted it's been a while, and I'm not all that worried about these aspects where my cichlids are concerned since I'm not breeding them for profit, so sometimes it's just easier when I see an orange fish with blotches to say it's orange-blotched instead of "the fish that has only one normal barred gene and one dominant mutant gene that scatters the barred pattern into splotches"...

I do appreciate the history lesson, though, McD. That's one of the things I really like about this hobby - it's still young enough that you can find people like yourself who have been involved with some species since they were first imported. Just out of curiosity, what were OB fish called before this auctioneer coined the term "orange-blossom/orange-blotch"? Of course they were called OB, but if someone didn't know what OB was, did you have to explain the whole gene thing?


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## Mcdaphnia (Dec 16, 2003)

nmcichlid-aholic said:


> ...... Just out of curiosity, what were OB fish called before this auctioneer coined the term "orange-blossom/orange-blotch"? Of course they were called OB, but if someone didn't know what OB was, did you have to explain the whole gene thing?


Before Liz called them orange blossom, people just called them BB and OB. If someone asked why, I guess they got the whole Mendel-strewn explanation and some may have faded out, especially since there was usually a "lost in translation" part about how the German word for "without" is "ohne". That never made much sense to me since I would think the B would have been a S or a G if it started out in German and the O meant ohne.

I do think orange blossom makes more sense and is more descriptive than orange blotch. The blotches are black not orange. Why would you call a black blotched fish an orange blotch? If it had orange blotches, we would call it "red blotch" wouldn't we? An orange blossom is a white flower and the most striking thing about an OB is the white background color.

There is a discussion of this in a back issue of Buntbarsche Bulletin.


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