# Aulonocara ,Peacock?? please help me id him



## carebear230 (Feb 25, 2013)

hello i bought this guy and a few others of the same at my LFS and they were only labeled as peacock cichlids ... they looked kinda cool and i was curious to see what they would look like full grown .. well its been about a year and the one i now know is a male is very pretty but i am having issues finding out what he truly is ... he is now trying to mate with one that i believe to be female that i gt from the same batch ... and if he turns out to be hybrid i would like to stop the mating before it happens ... in the last pic u can see the male with his female just about to start there mating dance 

jared 1 by carriepolay, on Flickr

jared2 by carriepolay, on Flickr

jared3 by carriepolay, on Flickr


----------



## carebear230 (Feb 25, 2013)

his top and bottom fin both have a yellowish stripe running lengthwise the full length of his fins .. the female is silver with a tiny ting of blue on her face with black blotches on her side


----------



## lilscoots (Mar 13, 2012)

female has copadichromis in her, can't say what type...but that spot pattern is common to the genus Copadichromis. Male does not look like pure peacock of any type and doesn't look like a copadichromis I'm familiar with though the greenish/blue face and the yellow strip on the anal fin can be found in some of the mloto types. Basically what i'm saying is, they're not peacocks...the male appears to be a hybrid of some sort and you'd be best not breeding them.


----------



## testeve (Sep 17, 2012)

Agreed. They are definitely not peacocks. The female does look like a copadichromis type or a hybrid of one. Did the male look similar to the female when you bought him? I have seen these at Petco labeled as peacocks before.


----------



## carebear230 (Feb 25, 2013)

yeah they all looked pretty much the same when i got them .. i bought 4 . and only the one in the pic colored up .. and he pretty muchjust started showing color about a month ago . so i dont think hes fully mature .. there was others in the same tank that i bought as well but they r i am pretty sure sunshine peacocks Aulonocara baenschi.. here is a pic as him ... in person they look to be the same shape but i know that can sometimes bee with peacocks and haps ... 

sunny by carriepolay, on Flickr


----------



## carebear230 (Feb 25, 2013)

__
https://flic.kr/p/9869575046
 is a link to my flicker where i have posted a video of him maybe to really get a good look


----------



## testeve (Sep 17, 2012)

The yellow one looks to be a Sunshine peacock.

The other one is still a mystery. Like I stated earlier I have seen these guys at Petco mixed in and labeled as Peacocks. But Peacocks do not have the three body spots. The Three body spots is a trait usually displayed by Copadichromis or Otopharynx. There are a few other random species with this trait, but those are the big two. These are more than likely hybrids. They may be Copadichromis mixed with Aulonacara (Peacock), but who really knows??? A hybrid can take on the genetic traits of one or both parents. In other words, they can look exactly like one parent and no one would know it is a hybrid or it can take on a mixture of both parents and that's when you get fish that are impossible to ID. :-?


----------



## ravencrow06 (Dec 11, 2012)

i may be off but it kinda looks like a placidochromis makonde yellow black fin.. 
had one of these a while ago so I don't remember exactly their look but head and mouth and finnage seems similar at least


----------



## lilscoots (Mar 13, 2012)

ravencrow06 said:


> i may be off but it kinda looks like a placidochromis makonde yellow black fin..
> had one of these a while ago so I don't remember exactly their look but head and mouth and finnage seems similar at least


Dorsal fin and tail coloration are all wrong for _P. electra_ "makonde", also the mouth of _Placidichromis_ is "further down" the face - the lower jaw doesn't curve up into the mouth it's more flat into the mouth with a longer forehead.

It's all fun to try and guess what's in it, but in the end you're just going to have to call it a pretty fish who's most likely a hybrid. the "female from the same batch" is definitely not a peacock (likely a _Copadichromis_ hybrid) and the male does not look like any peacock of _Copadichromis_. So we're left with interesting looking hybrid, not breeding material.


----------



## carebear230 (Feb 25, 2013)

like i said he did just start showing his colors . and just started maturing ... is it possible his colors now r just throwing us off ?


----------



## Cichlidman14 (Jul 17, 2013)

Most likely not, usually when they start to mature you can get a good visual of what they'll look like.


----------

