# Venting A. compressiceps



## Razzo (Oct 17, 2007)

Hey guys, do any of you have any links, photos, or helpful info on venting adult comps? I am anxious for my two Muzi gold head comps to start breeding. I assumed them to be 1m & 1f. They are like best buds always following each other around the tank but no hints at spawning. I'd like to vent them myself.

Of course, a few pics of each....

The assumed female (3.5")


















Assumed male (3.5 to 4")



























Thanks,
Russ


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## shon982 (Jun 18, 2010)

http://www.fishhead.com/articles/ventsex.htm


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## FishFlake (Mar 7, 2010)

Razzo said:


> Of course, a few pics of each....


I think you just enjoy teasing us with those photos. Amazing fish! :wink:


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## Furcifer158 (Feb 16, 2008)

FishFlake said:


> Razzo said:
> 
> 
> > Of course, a few pics of each....
> ...


 :lol:

I was going to post that link too. Thats the only one I have of any alto's


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## Darkside (Feb 6, 2008)

Take out a confirmed breeding pair for comparison when you vent. It should be pretty easy to tell when you have some examples on hand.


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## Razzo (Oct 17, 2007)

Darkside said:


> Take out a confirmed breeding pair for comparison when you vent. It should be pretty easy to tell when you have some examples on hand.


I suppose my breeding calvus would do?


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## Darkside (Feb 6, 2008)

Razzo said:


> Darkside said:
> 
> 
> > Take out a confirmed breeding pair for comparison when you vent. It should be pretty easy to tell when you have some examples on hand.
> ...


Those will do nicely. Comps aren't that hard to vent, especially from the profile view.


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## Razzo (Oct 17, 2007)

I vented my breeding calvus: male and female and they matched the profile picture in that link. So, with some confidence, I vented the two Muzi gold heads and I would have to say, based on the profile, they are both males. That would explain the lack of breeding :lol:

Thanks for all your help,
Russ


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## Furcifer158 (Feb 16, 2008)

Razzo said:


> I vented my breeding calvus: male and female and they matched the profile picture in that link. So, with some confidence, I vented the two Muzi gold heads and I would have to say, based on the profile, they are both males. That would explain the lack of breeding :lol:
> 
> Thanks for all your help,
> Russ


Lame......but I believe in a old thread you started I said I think they are both males :thumb:


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## Furcifer158 (Feb 16, 2008)

I lied I thought they were both female in that thread, well I thought they both looked really similar.

You still have hope though as those pictures of the altos vent are from altos that have spawned before. There is a chance your have never spawned yet, not not just for you. Vents show up, or at least protrude more after they have spawned at least once.

Need Your Advice THREAD


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## BioG (Oct 12, 2008)

When sexing newly mature sub adults I'll feed them as much krill as they can handle (stomach wise) and then, because they're bursting at the seems, you will, generally, see that the male's tubes are pointing straight down from the belly of the fish, and the females protrude diagonally toward the caudal fin slightly. I'd say this method, if you trust your eyes, has been about 75-80% accurate for me and the best part is that you don't have to catch and hold them out of the water etc.

But If you have to know beyond a doubt there's these from the article and althoughI wouldn't use Calvus as a guide to venting all cichlids as elongated body shape creates a number of vent variables which result in less evident vents in most other species, his pics have served me over the last few years as I vented guaranteed pairs:


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## BioG (Oct 12, 2008)

Don't be too sure Razzo, Just a couple of months ago I gave a friend what I thought for years was a spare male. As I was chasing him with the net he swam into a shell so I just bagged the shell and handed him to my friend to take since the last thing I need is more males.

I do however covet having extra females because I like having a busy Calvus setup whenever possible. To my surprise I did my buddy a bigger favor than I'd intended when I saw all the fry spilling out of the shell in the bag! The only other female in the tank also had fry in her shell at the time and was, of course guarding that shell. This "he" had never paired with any male that I tried "him" on and never shelled up and guarded eggs/fry. As a matter of fact for like 5 years all this, 2.5-3" "male" did was get beat on by the other female of about the same size and was repeatedly and aggressively driven into the corner by all 3 males I tried him/her with. But Lo and behold there wer alto fry in that fricken shell!

In retro I"m glad he got her, it's never a pretty setup when the outcast fish are cornered in unnatural looking positions in the setup. Hopefully he'll get her paired up.


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## Furcifer158 (Feb 16, 2008)

BioG said:


> When sexing newly mature sub adults I'll feed them as much krill as they can handle (stomach wise) and then, because they're bursting at the seems, you will, generally, see that the male's tubes are pointing straight down from the belly of the fish, and the females protrude diagonally toward the caudal fin slightly. I'd say this method, if you trust your eyes, has been about 75-80% accurate for me and the best part is that you don't have to catch and hold them out of the water etc.


That article was posting at the beginning of this thread. :thumb:

Also I find the method of POWER FEEDING your africans to make the vents "pop" out is a HORRIBLE IDEA!!!!!!

It's just not worth accidentally killing your fish by overfeeding. This method works well in lots of SA/CA cichlids but there intestines can handle the extreme amount of food.

I highly erg no one to try this with africans.


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## Darkside (Feb 6, 2008)

You can do this sort of thing with Altos, but I wouldn't risk it with bloat prone fish.


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## Furcifer158 (Feb 16, 2008)

Darkside said:


> You can do this sort of thing with Altos, but I wouldn't risk it with bloat prone fish.


But there are not to many people that I know of who keep alto only tanks, you might kill tank mates.

It just seems to risky for me.

I like keeping my fish alive and healthy


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## Furcifer158 (Feb 16, 2008)

Also all fish are bloat prone. Some just are more sensitive than others, so even with SA/CA cichlids there is still a chance that you could cause it. We can't see it happening in side the fish, its just a bad practice in my opinion.


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## Darkside (Feb 6, 2008)

All fish may be susceptible to bloat, but only some species are prone to getting it. That being said I've let my lamps absolutely gorge themselves on black worms (because they don't keep forever) and they have never developed any problems. Its actually a natural phenomenon for the fish of lake Tanganyika and it occurs whenever there's a mass emergence event, be it insects or fish fry. :thumb:


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## Furcifer158 (Feb 16, 2008)

Darkside said:


> All fish may be susceptible to bloat, but only some species are prone to getting it. That being said I've let my lamps absolutely gorge themselves on black worms (because they don't keep forever) and they have never developed any problems. Its actually a natural phenomenon for the fish of lake Tanganyika and it occurs whenever there's a mass emergence event, be it insects or fish fry. :thumb:


There is a difference between high protein fish food and natural prey in the wild. It "may" happen and the fish "may" eat until they look like balloons, *all I am saying* is that I would rather not risk it if I did not have too.

I'll just stick to a magnifying glass and a digital camera with a nice zoom to vent :wink:


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## Darkside (Feb 6, 2008)

I'm not recommending the procedure to anyone, but I don't really see anything wrong with it in this circumstance, it may even be a good way to help separate fry for sale. I should point out that krill isn't a high protein food and as such shouldn't cause bloat. 
The mass emergence events do happen, and as frequently as once a month, there's even footage of people around the rift lakes more or less eating bug burgers with all the midges that come off the lake.


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## BioG (Oct 12, 2008)

I'll still recommend for a few reasons:

#1 as this is an Alto venting thread I am, of course giving advice to alto keepers. I would never recommend even a single power feeding to, let's say, tropheus because first, it won't help you to see anything because of the shape of their body.

#2 Altos are predators meaning, as darkside, it's normal for them to hit it pretty hard here and there and krill or cherry shrimp are about as close to Tanganyikan shrimp as you're gonna get.

#3 Think about it. How much can an alto, or any predacious fish eat. They're not grazers like tropheus or goldfish. They can't just keep eating krill. remember that shrimp/krill are anywhere .5" to 1.5" . I don't know how big your altos are but mine are pretty big and even my biggest male at 6" cannot finish 1 entire krill at 1". I generally tear it in half for him whereupon he will suck one half and then the other, chew and swallow the first piece (Which takes him about 15 minutes) and then he'll blow the excess piece out not being able to eat any more. The females or some other, carnivore in the tank then has dibs. 
(The only way you could kill an Alto with krill is by poisoning the water with excess krill or by strapping dynamite to the krill. Or the other way around makes more sense I think! :lol: )

#4 for 31 years I have never lost an Alto to bloat. I've lost more fish to power outages and a brain farts than to illness.

#5 It has not been proven what causes bloat in the first place. research actually supports dirty water and stress as the main trigger. I suspect that a lot of what we're seeing which we think is the generic "bloat" is actually swim bladder infections and goiter issues but I admit that is only my opinion.

I suppose I could be a bit more thorough when /if I say "power feeding" in that I mean feed them well. Altos however have a tendency to show their stomachs full/empty status due to the fact that they're high and flat shaped thus the stomach is horizontally constricted by their physiology in the first place.

The main reason I use frozen krill (Never freeze dried because it expands inside the fish causing "bloat" :wink: ) is because of the way they eat (see reason #3) it. If I sat their and fed them pellets until I thought they were all full bellied I word of course be overfeeding them an excessively rich food (My staple foods are NLS and Dainichi so fish don't need much to get the nutrients of say a cherry shrimp since it's, in effect, concentrated) which may cause problems. Although those "problems" would still, most likely, be related to how water quality was effected more than the fact that I overfed them once.

Bottom line is that all my carniverous tanks get krill once a week. If I happen to be selling guaranteed pairs or looking for females for my own setups I simply look up their skirts after the NORMAL krill feeding.


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## BioG (Oct 12, 2008)

Also, to echo what Darkside noted, fat content has been linked to what we think is bloat even more than excess protein, but High protein is usually accompanied by high fat. krill is high in neither and is quite digestible for them and us for that matter.


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## Lestango (Nov 11, 2010)

I see what BioG is saying in #3 (I think). I have commented on this before regarding Altos getting a disproportionate quantity of food in a mixed tank that might contribure to slow growth. Not being a fish biollogist it seems to me Altos have big mouths for grabbing and holding prey but small pharyngeal openings. Once they grab food they have to chew the dickens out of it.

They seem to feed aggresively but ingest slowly. If true, in a mixed tank that would not be condusive to overfeeding them with protein rich foods. Their tankmates are a different story.


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## Furcifer158 (Feb 16, 2008)

BioG said:


> I'll still recommend for a few reasons:
> 
> #1 as this is an Alto venting thread I am, of course giving advice to alto keepers. I would never recommend even a single power feeding to, let's say, tropheus because first, it won't help you to see anything because of the shape of their body.
> 
> ...


Still I won't try it, I'll let other take the chances :thumb:

As far as your #5 it has been proven that it is cause by a bacteria, Its just too bad that so called "bloat" is over diagnosed as a common disease instead of going into it further finding out what kinds there are, gram positive/gram negative, etc
What I mean is there are many different bacterias that cause the same symptoms pertaining to "bloat".

I hate when people say I've been doing this for _____years personally. 
Not really 100% why this phase always bugs me :-?

Also I have a hard time believing you have been keeping Alto's since 1979-1980, From what I have read a heard from other hobbyist, most of the alto species first imported were in the early to mid 1990's and more variants started to really come out in the early 2000's........Don't quote me on this I not an expert, just an extensive reader on african cichlids and I always love learning something new, so if you have been keeping them since than, any proof?


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## Darkside (Feb 6, 2008)

There is no definitive answer on what causes bloat, in fact what I've read suggests that there is an equal likely-hood that it is caused by protozoa. Regardless of the organisms that do the damage no one is certain of the exact cause of bloat be it diet, pH or temperature. I've had some instances of bloat over the years, and I'm leaning towards sudden changes in water parameters. I find that in most cases lack of feeding and treatment with metro usually works (clout if things are bad), patience and vigilance is your best bet when dealing with bloat.

Altos have been in the hobby for many years now. Both calvus and comps have been in the hobby since I have. Baensch has the first import date for comps at 1958. I'm sure calvus weren't far behind, A. fasciatus are uncommon in the hobby, but I remember seeing some in the 90s as well. It was fairly recently that we've begun to differentiate the dwarf comps from the regular fish, though at this time they aren't designated as a separate species.


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## Furcifer158 (Feb 16, 2008)

The import in 1958 was to europe. when was the first in the states?[/list]


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## Furcifer158 (Feb 16, 2008)

I really hate bloat, there are so many different opinions on it :x


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## BioG (Oct 12, 2008)

Apparently I did not use enough emoticons to placate your sensitivities Furcifer... my, "years doing this" comment that you "hate" was a sarcastic to my young age in general (I am 31 and have not yet lost an alto thus I, personally have not lost an alto to bloat in 31 years which is a fact) :lol:

Sorry to upset you 

Bottom line is this: are you saying that it is inadvisable to feed altos frozen krill at any time? If so I will have to politely disagree.

As I said "I simply look under their skirts after their weekly krill feeding".

Also proving that bloat is caused by bacteria is like saying the common cld is caused by a virus. Both are quite obvious but both remain very difficult to treat in that bloat generally kills them before you can treat with antibiotics and the cold is defeated by immunity before its worth treating etc.

As for the disagreement at hand I am not trying to challenge you sir, I promise :thumb: I am no General Tanganyikan expert or any other "ology" expert. I have only obsessed over one genus (Altos) for the life of my hobby ( :lol: MANY YEARS :lol: ). I have struggled with cyps , for instance, never having been able to keep them successfully imo. So, it seems, there are still many flaws in my husbandry.

Of my 20 tanks (recently downsized  ) all but one are Alto tanks. I have enjoyed watching them, breeding them, raising them, dissecting them, performing surgery (once :lol: it was an experience!) on them, venting them, diagnosing them and even cleaning those tanks as I'm one of those weirdos who loves cleaning tanks! :lol:

All of this I have been able to do over a period of time which I will not divulge in this post; anyone hoping to ascertain the day/year mark of my experience as a Tang and/or Alto keeper can send me a private post at which time I will happily disclose details of the experience time requested- thank you :lol: (That's why people list years so's they don't have to post the last 2 paragraphs I just did :thumb:

Peace


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## Darkside (Feb 6, 2008)

Pierre Brichard mentions altos in the book I have that's from the 70s so I imagine that they'd been in circulation in NA a couple years before the publication, at least as early as 1975, probably more likely to be in the early 70s or late 60s.


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