# Confirming Festae or uropthalmus...



## imusuallyuseless (Dec 28, 2005)

What do you think???


----------



## Gino Santangelo (Nov 26, 2008)

10 bucks and I say Festae. But if this fish can live in full strength marine water it would have to be uropthalmus.


----------



## auratum (Jul 6, 2006)

Smaller tail spot and Y bar behind eye would suggest to me Festae... Pictures aren't real clear - give it some time to settle in and take some better photos to be certain.


----------



## gage (Feb 7, 2007)

well, i see the Y bar in the last pics, and in the first i see no bars, but a stripe of squares horizontally across the middle of the fish, it is a festae.


----------



## Reiner (Jul 17, 2002)

male festae


----------



## ThefishSupplier (Aug 19, 2005)

I'd go with Mayan. It just looks really washed out.


----------



## dwarfpike (Jan 22, 2008)

Are we voting?!?!? 

If so I vote male festae. Pics 1 and 3 look very festae. Pic 2 is a tiny bit mayanish, but since they are all the same fish, I will follow the words of a great american philosopher and go with 'two out of three ain't bad.' :lol:


----------



## bernie comeau (Feb 19, 2007)

Festae without any doubt. Male , very likely.


----------



## gage (Feb 7, 2007)

ThefishSupplier said:


> I'd go with Mayan. It just looks really washed out.


its stressed.


----------



## imusuallyuseless (Dec 28, 2005)

It was indeed quite stressed when those pics were taken. It's generally ALOT darker w/the stripes much more pronounced. That kind of sucks to hear it's a male, but given it's behavior I'm not surprised. So far it doesn't seem that I'll be able to successfully keep this thing w/my other cichlids because of aggression. I really like my goldsaum and don't want anything to happen to it so I think the festae will have to stay in isolation. What sized tank would you keep a single specimen in long term???


----------



## Reiner (Jul 17, 2002)

125 gallon 6 foot tank.


----------



## SinÃ¤lukiinsuomenttoikÃ¤Ã¤ (May 31, 2008)

trust me thats festae.
when i got my mayan i went through all this. after all that time ispend researching and getting opinions i can tell you thats 100% festae.
even though, my mayan was a 10" female and she killed anything. even a male jag bigger than her.
so Mayans really are an underrated fish in all departments but yeah thats festae


----------



## gage (Feb 7, 2007)

permanently, a 6 footer would be ideal, but honestly, a 75-90g would be more then suitable for a long time, they arent what id classify fast growers, and take years to reach anything close to the 16" mark.


----------



## imusuallyuseless (Dec 28, 2005)

That's good to know gage :thumb: Think he'll have to go in the 85G plywood tank I'm building. Any chance of dithers or should I just keep him alone since he's already proven to be pretty aggressive???


----------



## imusuallyuseless (Dec 28, 2005)

My festae had been beating up on my goldsaum so I tried a divider for a while. I hate the look of it in the tank, so when I moved three weeks ago I simply left the festae in a 5G bucket. Of course I performed water changes every other day to maintain the water quality, but what I mainly wanted to achieve was giving the goldsaum a better chance to get established. It appears to have worked so far. After having been in the bucket for two weeks, I reintroduced the festae to the 50G and so far it's playing nice w/it's tankmates. It did try to test the goldsaum again, but after some initial lip locking it seems the festae is ok w/being number two in the tank...for now:

















































































































You can see the stock list in my sig, but I wasn't able to get pics of all. The GT, RT and One pink con are the largest at around 3" total length. Theres a 1.75" salvini, a 1.25" salvini and a similarly sized texas that is definately the mini-terror, trying to go after all the <1" pink cons :lol:


----------



## MonteSS (Dec 8, 2008)

Hope your move went well. Do you have room for the bigger tanks now?

That 50g looks great but wont last long with that stocklist.

....Bill


----------



## imusuallyuseless (Dec 28, 2005)

The move was ****. I severely chipped my 135G on one of the long pieces :x Also NOT fun moving everything upstairs :roll:

But yes I do have more room now.

I've got more setups planned because I know the 50G won't hold them for long :lol: My only concern is the weight issue being upstairs. The paranoia about that was enough to make me cancel my planned 275G plywood tank. That said, my wife has given me the green light to set up the 110G in the extra bedroom. I've already built the stand and got all the hardware, but have stalled out a bit trying to decide on how to finish it. The tank also needs to be resealed, but that won't take long.

Also planning an interesting one that will go in the garage...
http://www.cichlid-forum.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=188815&start=0


----------



## MonteSS (Dec 8, 2008)

LOL. Ya I saw that behemouth.  Will be interested in what you do with it.

....Bill


----------



## imusuallyuseless (Dec 28, 2005)

Might do something stupid like throw in 20 inch long firemouths or convicts or something :lol:


----------

