L. caeruleus collection points and identification

I suppose I'm asking this question on here because I really think someone has definitely got these answers... I'm keeping fish for one and a half years and there are fishkeepers with years of experience on here who MUST have gone through this fact finding mission before on the most common captive bred lab in cichlid history.

Can anyone point me in the right direction of CORRECT identification material for L. caeruleus please? Preferrably links on the net if at all possible? I've trolled through so many cichlid sites and have found it's like a rat's nest trying to distinguish the native fish and their collection points. One site says one thing and then...well you get the picture! I have read so much about conflicting descriptions on labs from different collection points (Lions Cove, Lake Nyasa, Londo Bay, Nkhata bay, etc). There is a TON of misleading/inaccurate/confusing information out there.

Really hoping that someone can point me in the right direction for correct description/morphs?

And I haven't even started on L. chisumulae, L. pallidus and L. mylodon yet! I picked the wrong species to study I think! Every little bit of correct factual help will be of a great help to me and very much appreciated. Thanks in advance!

i am surprised that no one has attempted to help with this interesting query re the origins of this bestselling and mysterious fish. so i will write 2moro and tell you what i know of it.

L. caeruleus has a very large distribution in the northern half of the lake and occurs on both sides. In Malawi it is found between Chirombo Point and Charo. On the other side of the lake it has an even wider distribution from Cape Kaiser in Tanzania to Londo in Mozambique. In the early 80's Pierre Brichard got some specimens from Sweden and breed them in Burundi and put them on the market, since then the orange yellow morph mbuna has become a mainstay in the hobby.

Within a single population there may be some fish that have the black band on the dorsal fin and some that are entirely white. In Tanazania the most northerly labs are entirely white, at Thumbi point the labs have a blueish hue all over their body.I think the yellow labs that we say in the hobby look a lot like the labs from Mbowe Island or Lions Cove. Yet the Lions Cove variant also have a whiteish hue on their bodies also. They are a most beautiful mbuna but they are like all captive breed species breed to death and in some LFS they can look a bit drab with black blotches and stuff. Hope this helps. The yello labs i got from yourself Avril are stunning and are doing very well.

Mick...

the problem with this as with most malawi cichlids is the false and misleading information coming from vested interests at the distribution level within the international trade. also googling seems to lead to more confusion and half truths and unless you have a good initial knowledge of the subject it will lead to incorrect info being re hashed as fact.
the only reliable source of information that i know of is from ad koenings reports, who protects his good reputation rather than just trying to make money at any cost.
cutting through all the google rubbish and spoofing, the following is the nearest to fact that i know of and is mostly based on the writings of koenings and my own experience.
the original lab. careleus was and still is an unremarkable blue fish. careleus is latin for blue.
as mick says, around 1980 a pair of the electric yellow lab. was discovered and sold to a swedish dealer, where pierre brichard of lake tanganyika fame, seeing their potential,bought them and pool bred them at his catching station back in burundi. when he had bred 1000s he released them to the trade as labidochromis tanganicae in 1986 and they were a high priced sensation.
the malawi catchers stuart grant and eric fleet etc. were really pissed off at missing out as this fish made more money for brichard than any other fish and they missed the real financial killing.
the electric yellow lab. is found at lions cove at depths below 40 ft. and although reports vary it is probably quite rare and difficult to catch.
there are numerous morphs such as blue, bluish, whitish, white bellied and dirty yellow etc.
the wild caughts are almost always around 3 inches and never the size of the aquarium monsters that abound in the hobby.
unlike most fish species careleus hold reasonable colour and shape despite chronic inbreeding.
as avid and reckless egg robbers they create crossbreeding problems in aquariums as the males release sperm which is picked up by other species. also the careleus traits are always quite obvious and dominant in crossbreeds.
in 1990 fred mullen and brian kavanagh bought some tiny fry at a hefty price from a dealer in somerset and i got some of these and also some adults from ray neal of the fabled thringstone aquatics, (main dealers of stuart grant wild and pool bred malawis) i bred and supplied them to the local shops and other fishkeepers and these were the first careleus on the irish (republic) market. i am convinced that this species were almost uniquely responsible for the growth in popularity of rift valley cichlids in the hobby. these original specimens were better shaped and colourered and seemed to be less agressive than current stock. they were also less prone to the black stress markings that we see so often now.
i am still breeding from the descendants of the 1990 stock to this day and am always looking to add new blood but unfortunately, rarely see any fish that would improve the quality and doubt if quality is available except at astronomical cost.
one last thing although it could be rose tinted glasses, i remember before the internet and boom times dealers and hobby leaders such as alf robbins, stuart grant, ray neal and the bca, seemed to be less slick and could be trusted to a large extent and really knew their stuff.
what do any of the older fishkeepers think, is it rose tinted glasses?

well done lads for that imformation its always great to get the facts out there about the fish that so many of us have and breed.subjects like these are such a help to fishkeepers who want to further ther knowledge of keeping and breeding fish .well done for the info

Fantastic stuff lads, great read .

Jay

ciaran and jay, i agree it is a very interesting topic but the thing that annoyed me about this posting was the way it drifted away without questions or debate.
the yellow lab. is without doubt the best selling african cichlid and even one of the best selling tropical fish in the hobby. but probably because of its value, its origins and range is still cause for debate and every author has a different story to tell. apart from the anecdotal stuff, what i wrote in my post is just a best guess and is possibly completely wrong. when money and profit is involved it is very hard to get the facts and the internet has only given us a bigger range of possible facts and probable fictions and i find i can only really rely on actual hands on experiences.
one thing i've noticed on careleus hybrids is the dominance of the careleus traits over the other various species.
also careleus hybrids have only been obvious in the last few years as previously they were regarded as a fish unlikely to crossbreed. so have they adapted to life in captivity?

just wondering whether skinny disease as its sometimes known has become more abundant in this species through continually inbreeding or is it just the fish being kept with inapropriate tank mates.
john

john wrote:

just wondering whether skinny disease as its sometimes known has become more abundant in this species through continually inbreeding or is it just the fish being kept with inapropriate tank mates.
john

good question john. continual inbreeding will definitely weaken fish but i reckon that the "skinny disease syndrome" is generally a reaction to constant harrying and the related stress. female mbuna in general have a terrible life in an aquarium and thats why most big adult individuals we see are male. have you ever noticed how hard it is to get big female mbuna? the acei species are a notable exception as they are much more sociable with their own kind and are generally ignored by the tougher mbuna.

derek wrote:

in 1990 fred mullen and brian kavanagh bought some tiny fry at a hefty price from a dealer in somerset and i got some of these and also some adults from ray neal of the fabled thringstone aquatics, (main dealers of stuart grant wild and pool bred malawis) i bred and supplied them to the local shops and other fishkeepers and these were the first careleus on the irish (republic) market. i am convinced that this species were almost uniquely responsible for the growth in popularity of rift valley cichlids in the hobby. these original specimens were better shaped and colourered and seemed to be less agressive than current stock. they were also less prone to the black stress markings that we see so often now.

I bought some of these from Dave's trop shop in the mid-1990's - he told me they had come from you - so that probably explains why I'm disappointed with the caeruleus I see nowadays - I was spoilt. Those fish lived forever and bred constantly and gave rise to fabulously coloured offspring(even though I was obviously in-breeding them) . The black on the males was so strong - fantastic fish.

My memory of the BCA is probably rose-tinted too. I only look at them from the outside now, but they dont seem to be the organisation they were in the past.

i think part of the reason the labs get so skinny is the amount of time that they hold onto the fry .after breeding i take the female away from the male for a long break other wise she wont make adult hood at all

ciaranm wrote:

i think part of the reason the labs get so skinny is the amount of time that they hold onto the fry .after breeding i take the female away from the male for a long break other wise she wont make adult hood at all

that is good practice ciaran and will certainly help, but the skinny disease thing can also affect males. in the lake harrassed fish can escape the attackers whereas in the aquarium they are trapped in a box. thats why we have to take care with the mix of species we house together.

@jim. yes i sometimes pine for the old days and miss the shops like daves trop shop. his eyes would light up when a new species arrived and he was a great supporter and kingpin of the hobby.