# Help IDing these bullies!!



## gabrito (Aug 29, 2008)

Hey guys! I bought haps and peacocks from Bluegrass a couple of years ago. One of the fish i got turned out to be super aggressive and i dont think was either hap or peacock. Hr had a bunch o bully babies which are now adults and terrorizing the tanks. They have big front teeth... Theyre like piranhas!! Can u guys ID these an tell me if i should get rid of them?


























Thanks!


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## Aulonocara_Freak (May 19, 2011)

Look's like this one here http://bluegrassaquatics.com/pseudotropheus-sp-zebra-long-pelvic.html


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## gabrito (Aug 29, 2008)

It could be except that they don't have the lines so defined... Only when they get mad....


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## noki (Jun 13, 2003)

Well, they look Mbuna, but not sure. Can you get a pic with a male fully coloured up? Does the head turn yellow?


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## Fogelhund (Dec 3, 2002)

Aulonocara_Freak said:


> Look's like this one here http://bluegrassaquatics.com/pseudotropheus-sp-zebra-long-pelvic.html


Not even close..

The closest is something like a Rusty, but I suspect this is just a mbuna hybrid.


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## gabrito (Aug 29, 2008)

@fogelhund Definitely not a rusty...

@noki I'll try to get a better pic.... and no... it doesn't turn yellow...


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## dielikemoviestars (Oct 23, 2007)

Female hongi?


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## gabrito (Aug 29, 2008)

@dielikemoviestars I think that's it!!!

Should I keep them in the tank? or should I get rid of them? Their super aggressive compared to all the other fish in the tank....


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## esparzar1 (Jun 14, 2009)

Female Greshakei would be my guess. The species has more of a Metriaclima look than a Labidochromis. Just my observations....tough to tell though, could easily be a hybrid. Check out the profile pic for a female Greshakei, I think it's a dead on match :thumb:


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## noki (Jun 13, 2003)

They really do not look like any of the above mentioned fish. Since they were born in your tank, they are hybrids since you seem to imply you only got one in the first place.


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## guti9512 (Oct 16, 2010)

labidochromis mbamba females


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## bernie comeau (Feb 19, 2007)

With teeth like that... sure looks like a scale eater. Genyochromis mento.
Had some large adults many years ago when i was a kid. From what i remember of them, they looked very much like a rusty, except the large teeth. For what ever reason they never behaved anything like you might expect ... though i only had them very breifly as very old, mature fish.


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## Melanochromis (Mar 30, 2005)

Their Rusties, females by the looks of them, and as bernie has pointed out they are mature fish. The first group of Rusties I kept a few years ago looked like this and they were older mature fish. I was surprised at their aggression levels given at that point I was new to Malawi mbuna and Rusties were supposed to be among the least aggressive of mbuna. The male was a tank terrorist, but I did get a few batches of fry out them. If their causing your Peacocks and Haps bother then maybe you should remove them.


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## bernie comeau (Feb 19, 2007)

The more i look at these fish, the more I am convinced they are scale eaters, Genyochromis mento. They look exactly as I rember them! 
If you see these fish in person there is no mistaking them for anything else....their mouth and teeth have no resemblence to any other mbuna or rift lake cichlid; they are quite unique. They have a thick, large, and slightly protruding lower jaw, almost piranha-like, and huge visible teeth, especially on top. And there top lip opens up in a way that has to be seen to understand how unusual there mouth is. I used to have very good pictures in books showing the head and mouth in very good detail......but i cannot find any good pics on the internet; just what looks to me to be quite young and undeveloped specimens. I blew the pictures up to 400%---the jaw and top lip, IMO certainly fits. And can anyone really say they have seen another kind of mbuna with teeth as visibly large as this?

Actually it's only real resemblence to a rusty is in it's coloration. My very first innitial impression of a scale eater was that of a rusty.....but that was because that was the only brownish-yellow colored mbuna in the trade that i knew of at the time.


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## bernie comeau (Feb 19, 2007)

Melanochromis said:


> Their Rusties


After looking at this fish some more and looking at pics of rusties on the inernet, I realize I am most likely wrong, and you are right. Many pics show very large teeth as well as a similar lower jaw, on very mature rusties. I guess my memory of the scale eater, after 30 some years, isn't really all that good


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## fishman7365 (Sep 24, 2011)

Iodotropheus sprengerae (rusty)


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