# Blue Estherae or Callainos?



## lilcountrygal (Dec 27, 2011)

My friend is trying to separate her Estherae and Callainos. She purchased this as a male estsherae (blue). Just wanted to double check thats what it is?


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## lilcountrygal (Dec 27, 2011)

I just wanted to bump this in case Fogelhound is around


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## StructureGuy (Jul 27, 2002)

IMO the picture doesn't look good enough for a positive ID. But given those two choices I'll go with callainos just because the blue male estherae are uncommon enough (in the US) that people that sell them tend to know what they are selling. (And I've never seen them for sale at any LFS.)

My blue estherae below:









Kevin


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## brinkles (Jan 30, 2011)

I've never seen a blue estherae for sale either! The pics I've seen of blue estherae have faint bars, and callainos shouldn't have any bars at all.


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## lilcountrygal (Dec 27, 2011)

she's gonna put it with the Cobalts as her fish guy is ordering her a blue estherae. Thanks, everyone!


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## 24Tropheus (Jun 21, 2006)

lilcountrygal said:


> she's gonna put it with the Cobalts as her fish guy is ordering her a blue estherae. Thanks, everyone!


Kind of makes no sence to me. It is prob Metriaclima callainos so why not breed it with Metriaclima callainos. Why order Metriaclima estherae blue when you have perfectly good Metriaclima callainos? If looking to breed somethiong else, go something very different to breed, I would.

Bars on either of these are not good. Both should I think be none barred cichlids. Kind of the point of having iether.


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## lilcountrygal (Dec 27, 2011)

she has females of callainos and estherae. she wanted to know which tank to put this guy in... with the callanois or estherae.


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## GTZ (Apr 21, 2010)

Makes sense to me. Also, estherae can have barring as evidenced by native region photos.


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## RifterFish (Feb 5, 2012)

That juvenile is too small to establish the sex of it. How do you know it is male? I breed cobalts and cannot tell until they are about twice that size, and even then it is troublesome. Venting at this size is also not accurate. Just tooo small. Cannot go by the color at this size either (applying to cobalt). The egg spot is present on both male and females. I'd say the guy selling him to you gave you a 50/50 guess. I would never claim a sex at this age. Try to take a picture with the flash or turn on some lights. I would think a male etherae would be much lighter than that. For now, I would put it with the smallest fish group you have so it doesn't get eaten. As you can tell from my post, my guess is Cobalt as well.


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