What's the difference?

[letstalkfish]

What's the difference between aulonocara sp cipoka, rubescen, ruby red, and the german reds are these all the same? Can be put in the same tank?

[gibbs]

The Maleri island (chipoka) is the naturally occuring fish that can be viewed in the wild.

Rubiscens, German red and Red peacocks are all line bred from the Chipoka species. To me all red peacocks are just red peacocks no matter what strain, but to others this is not the case. The German Reds have been line bred in Germany obviously to produce a rich, deep and bright Red. Alot redder then your average red peacock. Germans are excellent engineers and they have done a good job here. German Reds are thought to be line bred from the "chipoka" species.

Red peacocks and rubiscens are also line bred from the maleri island species, i'm pretty sure the "chipoka" variant was used here also.

Basicly people wanted a red peacock and seeing as one doesn't exsist in the wild it had to be engineered and line bred.

[jroo99]

Does this mean that all the other reds (Rubiscens, German red and Red peacocks) are a hybrids?

[gibbs]

Does this mean that all the other reds (Rubiscens, German red and Red peacocks) are a hybrids?

Not exactly. The fact that a single species (apparently) was line bred to produce these fish does not exactly label it a hybrid. Unnatural would be the best way to describe them IMO.

[emartin]

There's speculation as to whether SOME of the ruby reds/rubescens, etc out there are hybrids. My guess however is they line bred them since they have been available (ruby reds/rubescens) for I think two decades now...plenty of time to line bred a fish to look red orange to red from a natural orange color.

The Fire Reds, Dragon Bloods, Fire Fish, etc are all hybrids though.

[letstalkfish]

The only reason I'm asking this is because I am possibly getting a trio of the albino rubescen and was thinking of putting them in with my ruby colony

[Sharpfish]

They would probably cross breed. Although they are technically the the same species. Is that like crossing the same species but from 2 different locations within the lake?

Line breeding and hybridization are not the same thing.

Line breeding is within a single species of fish ( ex. Aul. 'red rubescens'), bred for specific characteristics (longer fins, better colors, etc.)

Cross breeding is between two different species ( ex. Aul. sp. 'Dragon Bloods' or any OB Peacocks). More than likely a cross between an Aulonacara sp. and Pseudotropheus OB zebras. There no naturally occurring 'Orange Blotch' Peacocks in the Lake.

[Buckcich]

Haplochromis Police please chime in..............