Endler Id Please

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saz326

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Hi All,

Have some males I was sold as pure Endlers but their colouration has come out and I thought it best to seek advice.

They seem to court the females nicely which makes me think more peacock...

endlers images 3.jpg
endlers 4.jpg


The area of interest is the wrist before the tail... that marking of black on a yellow surrounding... looks tigerish to me.

Also the blue just in front of the dorsal fin doesn't seem to be on most Endlers.
 
It is hard to say, since true, wild type, endlers have been line bred without being mixed with guppies, but my guess is the only thing pure about your endlers is that the line they are breeding from breeds true. A line can be thought of as pure by some breeders of crosses simply because they don't see any variation to speak of in the fry. I maintain two separate colonies of wild type endlers and the color ahead of the dorsal does not bother me. The peacock spot also is not a problem but I am concerned by the apparent vertical stripes in your second picture. That smells of tiger endler to me, a definite hybrid though a very pretty one.

Does the seller have any traceability back to a wild collection the way I do? In my case, the fish can be traced back, quite readily, to a collection in 2000 by Armando Pou in the Laguna de Los Patos area of Venezuela. Collections since that time are almost non-existent because the local government tries their best to prevent such collections now. The government of Venezuela is especially difficult for an American collector to deal with due to prejudices that exist between the countries. There is a total of 1 other keeper between that collection by Armando Pou and my own first tank full of breeders. I have maintained mine meticulously clean since I got them in 2003 so I am confident when I certify to someone that they are "pure" by any standards that exist.

On the other hand, people like Adrian Hernandez have line bred strains of pure endlers to emphasize one or another feature that exists in the wild fish and can also trace their fish back to the wild. Adrian has some gorgeous fish to sell that are derived strictly from wild type fish but no longer resemble their wild parents very much. It is just possible that the fish you have came from such a strain.
 
Just a quick note.

Looking at the dorsal on your fish, there is far to much colour, True endlers have very little if any colour in the dorsal.

As already stated most people sell anything that look's like a wild/revert guppy as an endler! Then crosses happen easily. Very sad world for the endler.
 
Thanks both for the replies.

The seller was a shop.. at the time of purchase I thought they were worth a go. They had little colour at that point but the grown females with them were free of colour so I gave the males a go.

...yeah, I was nervous of those lines and colours in the tail.

They have been with my Endler females for a little while now so I will remove the males and use the next 4 months fry as feeders. The females I bought seperately (from someone on here actually - forget their name - sorry) and they arrived pregnant. I have saved their fry to open the male gene pool - looking to see what colour variation they have. Once the females have offloaded the current males 'seed' I can re-introduce their babies and open the gene pool a bit (seeing as various males can contribute to the one pregnancy).

Thanks muchly for the help. These boys will look pretty in my community tank.


Sarah
 

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