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Old 26-12-2012, 07:16 PM   #35
Nidd
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As many mentioned, its mainly head shape, finlet count and contrast.

For me I start with the head. This is personal preference. I think just forget abt snake head and all that, everyone has their own opinion. I prefer flatter, longer, spoon heads with fierce looking eyes for PBB.

Finlet count, many will look for 17 finlets, to me not important. 15 or 17 it's still a Chad and not a Turkuna.

Contrast, colour wise hard to tell in the shop and it changes with the environment. It's mostly a roll of the dice of this. My own pbb went from green to brown just because of a small change in my tank substrate. So for me, I look out for pattens instead. Subjective again, for me I prefer complete markings. Like the vertical bars from top to bottom all joined and all the way to tail with symmetrical like spacing. But i also look out for the contrast for the lighter areas and darker areas. It's hard to tell u exactly what I mean but I shall share a pic I have posted before of my koliba to give u an understanding because my pbb is not the most perfect pc in my eyes while this koliba is.



For me personally, I dun bother looking at the condition of the finlets or fish itself unless it is really bad like 1 whole finlet gone all the way to the roots. Because bichirs are really hardy fishes can will recover from their wounds easliy. I have bought pcs missing the whole lower lip until the gums and teeth all showing. Or even those missing almost the whole tail. They have all recovered nicely. Even those with broken finlets. So those miss out on nice pcs just because it doesn't look perfect, after the shipping, there are sure to be damages. But as long as it is only skin deep, nothing to worry abt.

Hope this helps.