Is this Phoenicurus?

[Russell Green]

Hi all.

I am hoping that someone can help me get a positive id on these fish?

They appear in the census as ,” undetermined commercial import”and it would be good to have a better idea of what they are.

They came into the UK as Phoenicurus about the same time as the positively identified ones arrived in Germany. Unfortunately the aquatic shop didn’t have any information about where they originally came from, and their suppliers didn’t know either. (Just as it always seems to be! )

They are of one male in full display, and the same male guarding a previous nest I also posted a photo of a less dominant male as well, and the female leaving the nest hopefully after more eggs have been laid.
They are beautiful fish and I have managed to breed them. The fry are about 2 months old now.

Are they Phoenicurus or could they be a variant of Alfredi?

Any information would be gratefully received.

Thanks for any help that you can give me.

[helene schoubye]

They do certainly look like the one pictured on the front page, which is one of the fish from the import in Germany by Aquarium Dietzenbach.
Given the coincidence in time, I think it could point to it being from the same import.

Where about in UK are your fish shop, it does seem they get interesting paros – you also had ornaticuada, didnt you ?
Even if they dont know where the fish come from originally, they must know which importer they get it through ? That is often helpful in some way or other 🙂

I cannot say for sure, but I really think it looks a lot like the other ones, which at that time was identified as p.phoenicurus.

[Peter Finke]

Russ, they are very likely phoenicurus, the male exhibits all of the species’ chracteristics.

But I want to defend the cautious style of our census. With fish from the trade we can nearly never be sure of their true identiy. The trade has often proved the suspicion that they are unwilling or unable to give correct informations on the licorice gouramies in their tanks (“deissneri”). But this begins with the sources in Asia. This was one of the very few cases that we experienced the first import ever of a newly descrpted species bearing the right name.

[Russell Green]

Thankyou for your replies.

Helene. The fish came from 2 different shops. I saw the Phoenicurus advertised by a shop on an aquarist sales site.
They had previously had some other Paro species which I managed to buy some of, and I presume the got them because the others had sold well. But I dont think there was any interest from the shop just purely financial. I know they came from Singapore, but they didn’t know, or wouldn’t say who were the exporters.
The Ornaticauda were ordered specially for us by a shop that imports regularly from Ruinemans, after their availability was posted here.

Peter. Please don’t feel like you have to defend the cautious nature of the census. I completely agree with it.
On my reply to the census, I noted that the fish were imported as and looked like Phoenicurus. However because there was not a positive id unlike the fish in Germany, I didn’t want them to be included with them and possibly cause future confusion.
I shall still include these fish in future census as Phoenicurus of undetermined commercial import, so as to differentiate between these and the Aquarium Dietzenbach fish.

[Author]

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