PlanetCatfish.com

Hey,

I agree that it's a mess; but I know 1 thing: Worton's group is a mix of at least 3 species.

Yup, thats what I've started thinking about also. But the big ones are easy to identify - they are just big. Two smaller spiecies are, for me, different but not so much to be sure what is what.
Any clues Sid how to tell them apart other than size?

Regards.

I've had eggs of the true polli, the brown stubby eurystomus one, and these eggs are a lot bigger than the eggs of petricola etc. about 1mm.

I am quite sure I have the "true polli", some still have the lighter coloration either still immature or just sub-dominant?
It seems there are dark and light of both sexes I would have to clarify this though.
Definitely the right size as well.

Lets have pictures of these other...types
I have just been going through Wright and Page's Revision (yet again) and it would be interesting to see a picture of the underside of the mouth of Warton's big guys...biggest discernible difference between dhonti and polli besides size is the mandibular tooth count 22 versus 40-70 and an uninterrupted premaxillary toothpad as opposed to interrupted, with a good shot of the mouth as far as I know these should be discernable.(good luck getting those pictures Warton )



Sid where were your eggs produced...marble pot? ( I remember your thread on polli or the white zambian polli but could not find it)

Birger

Hey,

well check this out Birger:

http://www.suephoto.com/index.php/galer ... x/5/344/18

This is one of mine, yes the biggest one .

Regards.

Hi Warton...I am still looking and comparing just out of interest and yes getting headaches....

So far the only thing I can say is your big guy is not dhonti going by the Mandibular tooth count, yours have about 30 or more as opposed to 22. The small number of teeth is quite apparent in the picture in Wright and Page.
( I realize nobody said they actually were dhonti...)

Which picture is one that is a side view of your big guy?

You said 20 cm is that TL or SL?

Birger

Hey,

mine is 20 cm TL
Well there is no side picture of my monster .

the eggs were scattered all over the tank during the first night here. the change in everything obviously triggered a mass spawn

I only had 1 male, but 3 females, so I guess things got a bit wild

unfortunately I had no decent breeding tank at that time, the fish just arrived.....all the eggs fungused

despite me trying to repeat that feat again with the group and adding a second identical male, I never succeeded.

the eggs were almost 1mm large. about the same size of substrate breeding central American cichlid eggs, like Convict eggs.
hence, a lot bigger than the minute sand grain size eggs of Synodontis lucipinnis and S petricola.

Just to add a little bit more information to this topic, as in my other post I purchased 9 wc individuals.

http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/view ... =8&t=26964

After some thought I decided to place all the "polli's" in one tank and after they settled 'a lot' of territorial disputes they have pretty much taken on the same coloration. I have came to the conclusion (at least as far as this mbuna fanatic is concerned) that all the cats that I have are the same species, just differing in age and collection point (which isn't important to me until I sell or breed them). The group of 9 is in a 125 gallon tank full of mbuna and doing great.

On a side note I placed the pair of grannys in the other 125 with 9 lucipinnis. Sometime during the first night 1 luci was killed, Do you think that this was just inexperience by the luci or will the grannys continue to pick the lucis off. It has been about a week since the first died.

Also has anybody had luck keeping approx 6 ph typus with 9 pollis?

Also has anybody had luck keeping approx 6 ph typus with 9 pollis?

I tried six P.typus in with my group of polli and four grandiops and I started to lose them one by one...at first I thought the typus were killing each other off(very possible) but I think it was probably due too food competition in this tank...too large a group of syno's, the polli are certainly not that shy when there is food in the tank.
I have kept typus successfully with both grandiops and lucipinnis but those groups were not as large. I did pull the remaining typus, combined them with another breeding group and am no longer losing them.

Birger

nfrost wrote: On a side note I placed the pair of grannys in the other 125 with 9 lucipinnis. Sometime during the first night 1 luci was killed, Do you think that this was just inexperience by the luci or will the grannys continue to pick the lucis off. It has been about a week since the first died.

Hmm, interesting. Grannys are not overly aggressive towards other tang synos IME with the exception of other grannys, that said, they are always first in the pecking order. I would hope that this is an isolated death - was it definately caused by an act of aggression? It may help to increase the number of caves with some that are targeted for luci use only by way of smaller size.