WILD IMPORTS

Fp.kribianus FIFINDA Orange

If you haven’t kept this fish you’re missing out. Wow, fancy being presented with A.kribianum & A.batesii in one day, wild fish at that. It happened to me.

This one we spread all over the world as eggs. Yes we bred them (A.kribianum, in quantity).

A.batesii were very difficult & not distributed.

The Orange FIFINDA did gain ground for a while & could have become established but breeders couldn’t be bothered with carrying on with them.

I remember one breeder giving up on them & we had to go to Leicester services to pick them up. A whole box of young sexed out fish. The breeder was, in our opinion top notch but the conservation thing just didn’t work.

Fp.kribianus FIFINDA Yellow

You all saw the picture on the front cover of K/N 396. This was a washed out image of the fish. I took the picture of the fish but it didn’t portray the true picture of the fish, which was a vivid yellow with purple to the top of the caudal & upper back.

These were difficult to breed & few eggs were distributed to known good breeders.

Fp.batesii AKOMETAM

These arrived in the same shipment as the A.kribianum. They were a beautiful fish but they failed to lay any eggs despite various attempts. It’s quite possible these spawn seasonally. Unfortunately I didn’t get a photo of this fish.

A.cognatum KINSHASA

Not from Cameroon this time but from the Congo region. The River Zaire is a huge region-playing host to many Aphyosemion sp./populations.

Not wishing to bring up a debate on this situation we had in the same bag 2 types of the A.elegans group.

Through extensive research in our material we sorted out that we had A.cognatum & A.christyi. Males are not the problem but how do you sort the females out?

After many hours of study… simple. Look for the scale extremities. In A.cognatum they are dark, in A.christyi they are clear.

After splitting them up into there own tanks they were fed on with a variety of live foods to build them back up. They were a bit ragged on first sight.

After a couple of weeks they cleaned up nicely & a few eggs started to appear. It’s always a relief to get the first eggs as you stand a good chance of establishing them.

A.christyii KINSHASA

As above. These proved a bit harder to get to spawn & were not as prolific but eggs were sent out in limited quantities to try & get them established.

This is a colourful sp. which is getting harder to find at the auctions these days.

E.chevalieri KINSHASA

We had a good quantity of these but they were in poor condition. Some were too far-gone to save but we did manage to get a few pairs round, enough to start breeding from anyway.

As we were a bit pushed for space the remaining fish (3 males 5 females) were all put together in the same tank. They seemed to get along OK & started to lay numerous eggs. These were easy to raise on in the usual way.

A.poliaki

These were found in a Cameroon shipment. We had about 3 pairs in rough condition, which were put in top tanks, which were well established with plant life. In fact they were really heavily planted & even had a small amount of thread algae.

I also put in mops for extra cover. The primary task was to feed them up rather than get eggs at this stage.

Although the fish were near adult size it took a couple of months before the first eggs appeared.

These proved easy to hatch & raise in the normal way.

To date (March 2000) we still have these going.

A.riggenbachi

These arrived in poor condition. Many fish died in transit or were too weak to pull round which died in the first couple of days. Some of these had dull orange caudal extensions as opposed to the white/pale blue in the fish which survived. We only had 2 fish, which were a pair. Despite various attempts they failed to lay any eggs. It was likely that the female was not A.riggenbachi.

E.sexfasciatus/infrafasciatus?

Orange form.Yellow form

We had 2 colour forms from Cameroon. A yellow reportedly caught at BISSIANG & an orange, which was really colourful reportedly caught at DEHANI.

Both forms were fairly easy to breed & the DEHANI form was spread about to try & establish them. At an auction in 1999 a pair was seen on the sale bench.

E.sp.(Flag?)

Didn’t know what to call this one. A couple were found as oddments in a bag from Cameroon. The anal fin was very colourful. They were bred but seemed to disappear.

A.ahli

Not the most popular of Aphyosemion in the BKA. The KRIBI population does appear now & then in the auctions.

It was nice to see wild A.ahli though just the same. Arrived in very ragged condition but were brought round & layed eggs regularly.

email: info@bka.org.uk