# Festivum sp. ?



## DirtyBlackSocks (Jan 24, 2008)

Anyone have an ID on this fish and/or know if any of our vendors have some in stock?


----------



## straitjacketstar (Mar 8, 2004)

Mesonauta sp.
Whether or not they're true festivum, I can't tell.
In any case, all the Mesonauta sp. are similar in requirements and temperament.


----------



## DeadFishFloating (Oct 9, 2007)

G'day *DirtyBlackSocks*,

Nice looking juvenile Mesonauta you have there. Mate I find them one of the hardest species to differentiate (Actually there are a lot of genus I find hard to differentiate :roll: ). My first reaction was they look very much like Mesonauta insignis, but they could just as easily be Mesonauta festivus, or possibly even Mesonauta cf. guyanae "Rio Tapajos".

Either way I wish the ones I see in LFS down here like just as nice. Unfortunately ours tend to look rather grey.


----------



## dwarfpike (Jan 22, 2008)

I think they might be too young to tell the species, though of course hard to tell from that pic but they still look small. Dug out a species guide from Dr. Wayne Leibel from his article on them way back in the December 1995 AFM issue ...



> *1a. Reticulated back:Mesonauta insignis - single wide dark vertical bar above the abdomen (not two), dark continuous lateral band, unpaired fins spotted, most slender, long nosed species. Distribution: upper Rio *****, Rio Orinoco
> 
> 1b. Non-Reticulated back:
> 
> ...


It looks like the caudal fin is spotted in the pics, but hard to tell. Would need a better straight on side view to tell more, though honestly I haven't found the guide useful at the LFS cause I never bring the magazine with me. :lol: Though it doesn't look like their band is continuous, so am guessing _M. festivus_ given the spotting I see in the fins, the band, and the short nose but just a guess! 

Hope this helps!


----------



## ryansmith (Apr 10, 2003)

DirtyBlackSocks, those are my festivums. They were posted on my site at SimplyDiscus.com. I don't really appreciate people hotlinking pictures of my fish from my Photobucket account without my permission -- you could have dropped me a PM at SimplyDiscus to ask about them.

Anyway, to answer the question, they are _Mesonauta acora_ and I got them from Jeff Rapps at Tangled Up In Cichlids. He doesn't have them in stock anymore.

They have grown quite a bit since that first set of pictures:


----------



## ryansmith (Apr 10, 2003)

I should mention that while Jeff Rapps claims these are _M. acora_, I cannot confirm that. Based on *this article* from cichlid-forum.com, it says that _M. festivus_ shows bars five and six being fused or joined. When mine are sleeping and their bars show, five and six are definitely fused. So it could be any of the _Mesonauta_ species, I guess.


----------



## dwarfpike (Jan 22, 2008)

*ryansmith*- the thing that makes me doubt _M. acora_ is the fact their 'festivum' line is supposed to stop before the middle of the fish and not reappear according to the guide Kullender did, and no mottled patern ... though granted that was back in 1995 ... with the several new species it might have been updated.

But seeing the newer pics, I don't think they are _M. festivus_ now either. In their young pics they seemed to have the short snout, but in these new pics they seemed to grew them out. :lol: Plus in the pics at least I don't see any spotting in the dorsal or anal fins, only the caudal fin ... but the spots may not be showing in the pics ... if they have a few, faint spots in the anal and dorsal fin in person I'd lean back towards _M. festivus._


----------



## ryansmith (Apr 10, 2003)

*dwarfpike*, I'm wondering if maybe Jeff Rapps labeled them as _M. acora_ strictly based on where he was told they were collected. At any rate, I will wait until they get a bit larger before I try to decide for sure because they keep changing. They were only about 1" when they came to me, right now they're about 3 - 4". A couple of the larger ones are starting to turn yellow now.

These were wild-caught and they were peaceful until they hit about 2" when they started to attack my adult discus. They've also killed and eaten a few of my BN plecos even though they are well-fed. My 150 gallon is getting a remodel and they'll share a tank with my port cichlids and Uaru.


----------



## dwarfpike (Jan 22, 2008)

Wow ... thouse are some rough festivums!!! Did no one tell them they aren't red terrors? They are pretty, so it doesn't really matter which species they are ... the temps vary slightly but since they are hardy cichlids, that's not a huge deal. Ports and festivum, two very underrated fish!!! Good job. :thumb:


----------



## DirtyBlackSocks (Jan 24, 2008)

Ryan,

Actually saw the photo's at simplycichlids.com - would have shot you a PM had it been on simplydiscus.com but I don't think I even have an account on the latter.

At any rate, sorry. Just hadn't ever seen anything out of that complex with such a pearlscale appearance to it.

I was under the false impression that Menosauta species were of the same temprement as Angelfish - after putting 3 insignis into my 75 gallon and watching them constnatly try and maul eachother for a few weeks I decided they were more along the lines of severum and lost interest.


----------



## ryansmith (Apr 10, 2003)

I cross-posted them on SimplyDiscus and SimplyCichlids since I admin both forums. Either way, it was a little surprising to see the picture posted here. No harm done.

I have always heard that festivums are peaceful and angelfish-like, but these are pretty feisty. Then again, wild angels are pretty nasty too, at least among themselves. I've seen wild _P. scalare_ attack and harass the weakest fish in a group until it dies, then they start attacking the second weakest, etc. until you're down to only a handful of fish. The festivums haven't been too hard on each other but they're not at "puberty" yet. I don't know what's going to happen then :-?

I hope once they move to my 150 gallon with some other cichlids they'll calm down a little. I can't imagine them harassing port cichlids or Uaru.

I approach everything from a discus and angel standpoint since that's what I know best. I always buy cichlids in groups of 6 - 12. I feel like it disperses the aggression more evenly than if you buy 2 - 4 fish. Maybe you need a larger group of festivums?


----------

