She has gone and done it now....

The domestic angels, Frank & Agnes, spawned again, a very nice sized spawn on their usual sword leaf. However, this apparently did not bode well for the remaining baby from the last spawn that I left in situ when I removed his siblings to sell (I left him behind because he was a bit smaller than they and I figured I'd give him another week or so).

I then noticed he was not coming out for feedings, and he was up in a top corner, uninterested in eating. Cichlids in top corners of aquariums are being harassed and are under stress - this is a very common sign and one that should prompt removal of said fish.

So, I did. I netted him out rather easily, as he must be too young to fear The Net. I was carrying him over to the adjacent 37-gallon growout tank when Liz's Evil Twin grasped her by the ear and dragged her downstairs briskly, and thrust the net into the 150! Oh no! What has she done?!

I had a momentary lapse of judgment, OR, this is no biggie - the jury is still out. There is plenty of room in the 150, and this baby looks remarkably like a wild scalare, with the slightly turned up nose and the bold stripes on silver. He has a very, very prominent dorsal fin that has a red tinge. He's gorgeous and though I should resist trying to keep fish that I'm supposed to be selling, I could not resist (newbie!). At some point I will learn.

My actions will inspire scorn from the purists - if you are keeping wild-caught P. leopoldi angels, they should have a dedicated setup, the correct biotope, and ought to be properly bred; they should certainly not be mixed with common domestics. Tsk tsk. It is like mixing Endler's with fancy guppies, or even, as the very serious hobbyist would no doubt think, like a major metropolitan zoo breeding a tiger and a lion together for one of those charming (!) ligers.

I have no idea if the leopoldi will breed for me and see no sign that they will (Heiko Bleher says they won't in this setup due to the water that is too hard and alkaline for them - I tend to believe him), and mainly just want an attractive display. I will be able to easily remove this individual fish if there are any problems, since he is so different from the rest, but given the amount of room available in this tank I wanted to see how these babies would turn out. He seems to be a real stunner so far, almost the size of a quarter. I have tried to get some pics of him but no luck yet - he's spending a lot of time in the weeds right now, as the most diminutive cichlid in the tank. His amazing sail of a dorsal fin, perfectly erect vertically and quite broad, makes him appear bigger than he is, and that gives him an advantage.