# N. livingstonii, or not?



## cichlidae212 (Dec 23, 2013)

Hello all. I recently picked these fish up from a local breeder. They were being sold and livingstonii, which at the time they appeared to be. When I arrived to pick the fish up, they were pre-bagged and waiting for me. As you might expect, they were stressed from being moved and darker in color. However, after several hours in my aquarium their colors normalized and I noticed something &#8230; off. Basically, the colors look a little to green, at least to me anyway. The obvious male of the groups coloration is also limited to his head, a little to close to venustus coloration for my liking. I now assume they are livingstonii x venustus. However, I would like a second opinion before I do something drastic, like LFS them, or let them "play with" my Arowana. Any opinions are welcome, so feel free to chime in.


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## Mr Chromedome (Feb 12, 2013)

I believe you are correct that they are definitely not _livingstonii_. They don't have clean markings for _venustus_, though that could be poor breeding. Except for that, they have all the characteristics of them. I don't think they are necessarily hybrid, just misidentified due to the poor color pattern.


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## pablo111 (Dec 10, 2013)

DO NOT feed cichlids to your Arrowana. Feed it something stupid like a frog.


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## noki (Jun 13, 2003)

I think the livingstonii x venustus idea is probably a good guess.


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## nmcichlid-aholic (Mar 23, 2011)

noki said:


> I think the livingstonii x venustus idea is probably a good guess.


Agreed. Definitely has some venustus markings and coloration, but the body and head/mouth shape reminds me more of livingstonii. I would lean towards hybrid rather than poor quality venustus. I also agree that feeding them to your arowana wouldn't be the best idea - just see if you can sell them back to the person you got them from. Or keep them, just don't distribute any fry. The male does have some nice color...


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## CichlidB (Dec 29, 2013)

Feed them to your arowana? or give them to LFS why would you do that they are really nice fish lol makes no sense to me


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