# Pundamilia sp"redhead" (zue island)



## tranced

has anyone had experience with these guys? i just ordered 10 of them... was hoping to keep them with a mbuna species. thinking metriaclima kingsizei 'lupingu' (the yellow form). they are supposedly a smaller and milder species of mbuna.... the other options could be cynotilapia sp. 'hara'. but im not sure what the victorians temperament will be, i only know they grow to about 4"??

in australia there is hardly any victorians around, and the ones that have been here a while are usually plagued with hybridisation and even wierd speciation(!!!) so im pretty excited to get these, i hope they are true to form.


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## samaki

P.sp"red head"is a rock dwelling cichlid so this might work.
xris


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## fulu-1

i wish they were available for order here in the states good luck with them


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## tranced

i have my doubts that these fish are the real deal, i guess i will have to buy them and then post up pics. im expecting them to be some kind of hybrid TBH  but you never never know if u never never go lol


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## fulu-1

just went thru that myself good luck


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## tranced

any tips on husbandry? im going to basically treat them like a mbuna?? 2 or 3 males and about 6-8 females? feed new life spectrum and algae based foods... lots of rocks... anything else?


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## samaki

Hi yu've got the right things, no more things to add
xris


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## tranced

thanks alot  stay tuned for pics in a couple of weeks


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## fulu-1

no dunt keep us informed.


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## tranced

how agressive are these guys? could they live with highly agressive mbuna? what about mid level ones? or should i try and keep them with milder species? thanks


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## samaki

Hi It's better at my point of vue to keep them with milder species. I'm not sure he will feel good with high agressive mbunas.
xris


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## tranced

going to try them with the kingsizei 'lupingu' and cyno sp. 'hara'. if they look stressed will remove the hara! later will put them in a species only breeding tank if they are the good thing, if they are just another hybrid i will sell them clearly labeled as such !!! less than a week till i have them, cant wait


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## tranced

well they fish came in, but there was only 4 instead of 10 

i had to drive around and luckily i found another store that had ordered some a few weeks earlier. the good thing was, i then got to pick out all the females  so i have 2 males, 5 females and 2 very small ones that im not sure of sex yet.

the good news is, that all the colours seem to coming up in the right places, the shape of the head and lips looks right as well. i will get some pics up of them soon, they dont have heaps of colour yet but comparing it to pics on google its looking quite good at this stage :thumb:

one thing i noticed is that the females are very aggressive with each other!

will keep you posted, thanks for the help so far


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## samaki

:thumb: Good luck
xris


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## tranced

still young fish (3-4cm) but showing some traces of their colour... what do you think so far, or is it too early to say?


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## samaki

Hi
They are too smaller to be 100% sure but they seem to be good to me.
xris


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## tranced

new photo, and a suprise for me !!!


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## monisaab

WoW...


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## tranced

been a while now, the fish have alot more colouration. the dominant males tend to get a dark spotted pattern on them.



















also, one of the females is covered in black marks??? nerve damage??










do these still seem like they may be the real thing to the experts out there?


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## samaki

Hi
This is skin parasite, it doesn't damage the fish 
xris


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## mattrox

I have noticed the black marks on fish after a filter crash and ammonia spike. Don't know how long it takes to go away.

BTW Tranced, have you got this book?
Cichlids of Africa Volume I: Haplochromines.

It's awesome especially considering the state of these fish in Aus.

BTW those males look awesome!


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## tranced

interesting, i have never seen those black marks before! i was worried it might be a sign of bad quality fish or something. otherwise do the fish look good? im not really sure what they shoudl look like, the net is a bit hazy on this.

i have never read the book mentioned, i thought why torture myself !!!! i think i can name like 3 species of victorian we get in australia, and they are usually hybrids anyway.


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## miniabbott

So beautiful! I like it!


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## CichlidBreeder

Crimson Tides always get confused with Zebra Obliquidens, good to see some pundamilia sp in Aus  Anyone else have these or Zebra Obliqs? :fish:

As for the spotty female I would say bad breeding, I have seen this with various zebras.

Always look out for random spots and broken lines ect


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## tranced

the fish were completely spot free for most of their lives. at about 4-5cm this one female developed the spots. now a second female has them. i was worried about bad breeding, but it seems strange the spots would suddenly appear on the fish at that size, and not on any of the other 7 fish?

i looked into the parasite theory, and how it is part of a chain that involves birds and snails. this makes sense in some ways, as i have a tank outside my house that is full of ramshorns snails. i have put snails from this outdoor tank into the tank with the fish in it. but why would they badly affect 2 fish and none of the others? also i read that the parasite will basically die off after a few weeks in an indoor aquarium, as it cant complete the lifecycle without birds. but they have had the spots for several months.

basically i have no idea what it is!

and Xris if you dont mind, could you comment on whether or not you think these fish are genuine? dont hesitate to say so if you think they dont look right, i am currently raising fry with the aim to distribute to my local cichlid club. so please do say if you have any doubts, i dont want to spread around fish that are poor quality or not a true species. thanks for your help with this


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## samaki

Hi the fishes look good to me( it's always difficult to id correctly a fish from a pic) but yur fishes seem to fill the red head species in many points.I would say that they are from a good strain.
xris


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## alanastar

Hi,
They look like they will grow into nice red heads :thumb:

the transformation is amazing and as they get older they seem to keep the red colouration permanently.

this is my old male that has battle scars around the mouth, he is about 10cm


















and some examples i acquired from a German breeder, still young


















as for your black spots i have heard two other theory's including too much spirulina in the diet and already mentioned ammonia burns after a spike in ammonia (due to a blocked filter or recently cleaned filter which may have lost its bacteria or even a power cut)

:thumb:


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## tranced

thanks xris that is good to hear  already have some fry growing up from the colony, they are very agressive at 1cm!

alanastar that is some amazing fish you have there, i can only hope mine will turn out half as good as those!!


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## tranced

a small update... the male managed too kill all of the females except one. unfortunately the fry kept dying as i was growing up more aggressive cynotilapia species at the same time. so now i have 2 adult males, one adult female and four fry, sex unknown 

i have been keeping the dominant male on his own, and now the weather is warming up, will attempt to place him with the other two adults until he spawns, then separate everyone into their own tanks. hopefully nothing will go wrong and i can produce a good number or fry and make sure this species does not vanish!

the black dots... well they turned out to be battle scars. since the dominant male has been kept by himself, they are all starting to disappear.


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## samaki

I hope everything will be fine.
xris


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## tranced

well that was an epic... the male killed another female, leaving me with only one left... i put a colony of electric yellows in the tank to try and disperse the aggression and it seemed to do the trick, the female was holding  put her in a tank by herself and the ^%*&% swallowed the eggs  then back into the main tank, and the male decided to kill her as well, leaving me with only a male! i had the 4 fry still surviving from a while back, i almost lost the smallest two though... grew them up slowly and surely, and phew, had a nice male and two definite females. only got four fry from my first mouthful, but thats still great when it was so close to disaster. so fingers crossed, it may be ok...

the new male is even nicer than his dad...



i think the trick to breeding these fish in a smaller tank is to breed the younger males, once they achieve full size they are just to powerful and will kill the females


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## Chester B

Big tank and lots of other fish to keep the male busy should help. Vic's tend to be tough on females and I have always found that they do well with many Malawians. Good find in Oz for sure. I only went into one store in Melbourne and I went to a big one in NZ and was very disappointed when it came to cichlids. Here in Canada everything dies when winter rolls around so the import restrictions are non existent and variety is fantastic. That being said I've yet to see red heads in person.


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## tranced

unfortunately stuck with 3ft tanks at the moment, but i think i can make it work by cycling the bigger males into the big tanks at work. have a random pair of orange chromides in the tank with the breeders at the moment, they seem to do pretty well to stop the single male from becoming to hyper dominant.

australia can be pretty hit and miss, unfortunately most of the $ is in boring tropical fish, so you need to go to a shop that specialises in cichlids. even then, tends to be the same old stuff. most of the rare/exciting fish are in the hobby market.


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## Chester B

If there is a major size difference between your big male and the females then perhaps you can put a divider in that allows females to move freely but keeps the male on one side. Same sort of thing they do with big Central American cichlids.


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## samaki

Hi Tranced, yur fish is very good  looking, yur strain is from a good quality, looks identical to what I see as a red head. If yur male is too dominant, try to put more hideouts for the dominated fishes, it can help sometimes.
xris


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## tranced

thanks  it makes me very happy to hear that after all the stress of trying to keep them going! and to think i was almost certain they would be a hybrid when i first bought them!


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## Chester B

Totally worth it. Getting true species can be difficult when it comes to Vic's. I can't imagine there are many of those around in Australia. I've yet to see them myself in person.


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## samaki

It's becoming rare in Europe nowadays but still kept by some hobbyists, it's good to see that yu have a valuable strain of vic as it seems quite difficult in Australia.
xris


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## tranced

dont know of anyone else to be honest, im sure there must be someone out there, but they do not frequent the major cichlid websites so who knows? lol


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## africancichlid

I know some Pundamilia "redhead" were collected this year through old world exotic fish


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## tranced

the problem in australia is that there is only a certain few species allowed to be imported, and none of these are lake victorian species.


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## tranced

another pic, that shows the colours on its tail a bit better!


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