Hi Folks,
Many months ago, I got a call from Jia Yong from JZX. He told me he has something interesting to show me. I reckon it must be a new strain of wild angelfish. Honestly, I wasn't excited as many LFS have been bringing in wild scalares and often regardless of the locality, there wasn't much interesting about the fish to speak of.
In any case, I decided to pop over his shop immediately after work to have a quick look. When I reached there, he showed me a bag of angelfish. There were 10 of them. He cautioned me that the finnage was badly burnt. So plainly, I wasn't too hopeful.
I netted out one pc...... My eyes almost popped out.
What I saw was nice bluish green speckles all over the body of the fish. At first glance, it looks like Suriname. But there were very distinct red spots on the back of the fish. Suriname sometimes will have some spots on the side of the body but not on its back and it is usually very minimum. Also, Suriname's body color will have tinge of yellow, not bluish green speckles like the one in my hand. To me, this is definitely not Suriname for sure. Also, the body shape is different. Suriname has a pronounced protruding forehead but this fish has a smoother curve in its head shape. Suriname also has a taller body form but this new strain has a rounder body form.
I asked Jia Yong what was this.... He said.... It's labelled as Pt Scalares "Essequibo" and they are German bred. I did a quick google search. Rio Essequibo is the largest river in Guyana. This must be the rare Red Spotted Guyana!
I 've read about this strain before. I immediately bagged the whole batch.
I kept this batch for a few months. The red speckles on their back started to spread and the body started to develop very fine black spots, which cover almost the entire body of some specimens. I brought home 2 pcs (suspected male and female) and threw them into my planted tank.
After keeping them for almost year...... they bred......
So, here are some pics to show their development.
About 2 months after getting the Essequibo .... Fish age is probably about 5 months old.
Suspected male
Suspected female
Group pic
Can see the badly burnt finnage.... but to a breeder, this is not crucial. It's the genes that matters.
About 7 months old.
Female
About 9 months
Male - Can see the black spottings covering the entire body....
Group pic
Female also started to develop black spotting to the belly.
To be continued tomorrow.....