# Metriaclima Sp. "Zebra Gold" Kawanga



## Mschn99 (Dec 24, 2012)

Lost all motivation today while working in the fish room.......so instead of being productive i just took new pics of my wild group of zebra gold kawanga lol


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## hisplaceresort1 (Mar 10, 2014)

super cool fish... are the females piebald? or is that an OB morph or what? Thanks!


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## Mschn99 (Dec 24, 2012)

hisplaceresort1 said:


> super cool fish... are the females piebald? or is that an OB morph or what? Thanks!


i have 7 females. This species is interesting as the females can take on one of two colorations. 4 of my females are what they refer to as "brown" (which is actually more gray) and 3 of my females are OB. Both are proper for the species and interestingly enough OB females have OB females in the fry and brown females have brown females in the fry. Males are always normal unless you get lucky and get a male with an OB male gene as well.........If that male breeds with an OB female, you would get half the fry being Mcat (marmalade cat which basically means OB male) which for some species is common but for this species and collection point is pretty rare.


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## Kanorin (Apr 8, 2008)

Gorgeous fish. I love those OB females. Thanks for sharing!


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## Iggy Newcastle (May 15, 2012)

Holy cow! Nice pics. Have they spawned for you?


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## Chester B (Dec 28, 2012)

Great color on these fish. What a nice contrast to have with mostly blue fish. You can certainly tell these are wild fish by the bluntness and steep forehead. Very cool.


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## Mschn99 (Dec 24, 2012)

Iggy Newcastle said:


> Holy cow! Nice pics. Have they spawned for you?


This is the most photogenic fish i own. I swear he poses. Yes, i have had 5 brown females spawns and 1 OB female spawn. I got the fish at different times I got my first group that i thinned down to 1M3F just over a year ago. They account for all of the brown female spawns. The other fish i got a few months ago on another import. All three OB females came in that group plus a couple more browns. The OB spawn i got happened in the QT tank right before i put the two groups together after selling off all the extra males. They are very inconsistent in their spawning. I got my first one RIGHT after getting the first group. Then did not get a spawn for 6 months. When nothing was working, i moved them from a 48x16 footprint 60 gallon to a 60x18 footprint 125 tall. I got a spawn within a week of moving them and have had more consistent spawns since, although they still do not breed super regular like most of my other mbuna.


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## Mschn99 (Dec 24, 2012)

Chester B said:


> Great color on these fish. What a nice contrast to have with mostly blue fish. You can certainly tell these are wild fish by the bluntness and steep forehead. Very cool.


The forehead on these is super interesting actully. My initial group i got was small, and i didnt have much to compare to.........but i purchased a very large quantity of them a few months ago to get the females i wanted to expand my group with as well as get OB females. There is a VERY VERY big variance in the foreheads of the males fresh out of the wild. Looking back on pics of the male pictured above though, it appears that the steep forehead is something that really just comes with age and probably develops faster in some males over others. It was cool to compare that when i had all of them in the 240 gallon QT tank


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## Iggy Newcastle (May 15, 2012)

Thanks for the detailed answer.


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## Chester B (Dec 28, 2012)

A few months back I saw a group of wild caught Chewere elongatus for the first time. I was really taken aback by the sheer bluntness of their faces, it was as if they ran into a wall at 100 miles an hour. I was planning on buying some but after seeing them I changed my mind and am going to purchase some tank raised specimens instead. Your fish however looks very noble.


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## Marconi (Oct 7, 2013)

Awesome fish...definitely on my wish list


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## hisplaceresort1 (Mar 10, 2014)

Mschn99 said:


> It was cool to compare that when i had all of them in the 240 gallon QT tank


...just looking back on this as I was adding Kawanga to the list of females I hope to get, but... did you really mean to say you have a 240 gallon quarantine (QT?) tank? I'm guessing your signature may need to be updated... how many tanks do you really have? :drooling:


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## Mschn99 (Dec 24, 2012)

hisplaceresort1 said:


> Mschn99 said:
> 
> 
> > It was cool to compare that when i had all of them in the 240 gallon QT tank
> ...


My sig does say 64 tanks in the fish room  I have a few more than that as well for emergencies......but that is the average of what is running most of the time. I have not found a use for my 8' 240 gallon yet as a species tank, since i also have an 8' 220 in the living room.........so i use the 240 as a QT tank most of the time, sometimes as a grow out tank for future breeders. Its kind of my universal tank i can use for just about anything really. I got 20 zebra gold kawanga, in a male heavy ratio to get my females. So it was going to take a big tank to QT them and not have losses.


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## hisplaceresort1 (Mar 10, 2014)

Mschn99 said:


> My sig does say 64 tanks in the fish room  I have a few more than that as well for emergencies......but that is the average of what is running most of the time. I have not found a use for my 8' 240 gallon yet as a species tank, since i also have an 8' 220 in the living room.........so i use the 240 as a QT tank most of the time, sometimes as a grow out tank for future breeders. Its kind of my universal tank i can use for just about anything really.


...Wow... your signature really does _not _need updating... I think you _are _the coolest person I know...


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## Mschn99 (Dec 24, 2012)

hisplaceresort1 said:


> Mschn99 said:
> 
> 
> > My sig does say 64 tanks in the fish room  I have a few more than that as well for emergencies......but that is the average of what is running most of the time. I have not found a use for my 8' 240 gallon yet as a species tank, since i also have an 8' 220 in the living room.........so i use the 240 as a QT tank most of the time, sometimes as a grow out tank for future breeders. Its kind of my universal tank i can use for just about anything really.
> ...


LOL, thanks but you would be surprised how many large fish rooms are spread around this country. I know of at least a dozen here in the san fran bay area, and they are not near as common here as they are in the mid west and east coast.


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