Retirement and forum shutdown (17 Jan 2022)

Hi,

John Howell who has managed the forum for years is getting on and wishes to retire from the role of managing it.
Over the years, he has managed the forum through good days and bad days and he has always been fair.
He has managed to bring his passion for fish keeping to the forum and keep it going for so long.

I wish to thank John for his hard work in keeping the forum going.

With John wishing to "retire" from the role of managing the forum and the forum receiving very little traffic, I think we must agree that forum has come to a natural conclusion and it's time to put it to rest.

I am proposing that the forum be made read-only from March 2022 onwards and that no new users or content be created. The website is still registered for several more years, so the content will still be accessible but no new topics or replies will be allowed.

If there is interest from the ITFS or other fish keeping clubs, we may redirect traffic to them or to a Facebook group but will not actively manage it.

I'd like to thank everyone over the years who helped with forum, posted a reply, started a new topic, ask a question and helped a newbie in fish keeping. And thank you to the sponsors who helped us along the away. Hopefully it made the hobby stronger.

I'd especially like to thank John Howell and Valerie Rousseau for all of their contributions, without them the forum would have never been has successful.

Thank you
Darragh Sherwin

Today In The Fishroom~3/27/11 P. "coatzacoalcos"

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Aquamojo (Mo Devlin)
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28 Mar 2011 10:23 #1 by Aquamojo (Mo Devlin)

Today In The Fishroom~3/27/11 P. "coatzacoalcos" was created by Aquamojo (Mo Devlin)

A couple weeks ago I noticed that my normally blue P. coatza's were changing colors. The male more intense blue and the female a gray-brown. This particular tank has three of the fish...two females and one male...a "mix" of gender that I have had luck with to stimulate breeding.

Coincidentally I have the fish in two other tanks. Both with male and female. In one tank I have T. wesseli as well...and in the other I have juvenile A. hogaboomorum. This is the only tank where they are sole occupants...and the first to breed.

Here's the male slipping closely into the dominant breeding coloration.

I spoke with Juan Miguel from the CRC. He told me that in the wild, both fish will turn yellow. This certainly is the case for the female....maybe not exactly, and not necessarily all of the time.

Interesting to note that the male did not turn yellow. I have noticed that when younger fish breed one or both of the species can't seem to follow the playbook exactly. These are very small fish...babies having babies actually.

One interesting thing of note about the color changes. Chromatophores under the the skin are broken into subclasses of varying colors...yellow, red, white plus those that are reflective/irredescent. Melanosphores cover the black and brown. The animal (fish in this case) turn these cells on and off to change color...rapidly in some case.

The coatza male was the most impressive...going from a near blue to blue with light vertical bars...

...to a lighter version with much more pronounced vertical bars.

The female stayed very close to coloration. Both fish would become more intense whenever I was able to lure them within...or the other female...close to the breeding area.

For the most part the male remained hidden on the other side of the tank. When he did near the breeding area the male and female worked in unison guarding and leaving the area. Here she is hot on his caudal tale getting back to the kids.