gl - I've been listening to this thread and I haven't heard anyone say "this
fish looks exactly like what Adrian has posted on his web site" - that is the G.
xxx from mamberambo. I believe that is also a Maebe pic and is a picture that
was taken in Europe and not of a fish in Oz. Even one picture can make it
difficult to really see exactly what the fish "normally" looks like. Is it this
fish that has made it's way into Oz or is it just another wanamensis/incisus
cross? If I had a nickel for everytime someone here in the US said that they
had a "multisquamatus" from the petstore etc etc I would have my land rover now
:-) As far as I can tell all of the stuff here in the US has been crosses, none
of it matched the photo published in one of the early ANGFA (FOS) journals.
What people were doing here is they would get a strange looking fish in
(imported from the orient, home of screwed up fishes) look in Allen's old book
and declare it a multisquamatus. The pic in Allen & Cross looks nothing
(really) like the picture that was published in Fishes of Sahul. I would
suggest that unless you get some really hard evidence from one of the local
ANGFA (Melbourne) people that this is a legitimate fish - I'd leave it. Way too
much time has been wasted in trying to preserve crosses.
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(C. Drew)
There is also a fish being sold in Europe as C.Sentaniensis but I have my
doubts. I think the confusion surrounding that fish still persists. I think this
fish is really a variety of C.fasciata. I base this conjecture on widely
different photographic evidence. Is the real Sentaniensis in Europe? (it is
supposedly here in N.Am. I know where I got my fish but I don't know anything
about it beyond that).
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and moving on to senteniensis:
I had the fish in the mid-eighties that was called "C. sentaniensis". It was
very much C. fasciata like but of a different colour pattern. It was different
than the "red & blacks" that came in about the same time, both coming in from
Europe. Back in 1989 Dr. Allen emphatically told me that the C. sentaniensis
going around Europe was NOT a C. sentaniensis. The error occurred when he and
Heiko were collecting the lake, they pulled up something they thought and
expected was sentaniensis. Not until later when Allen did all of the scale
counting etc. did he realize his error (it was C. fasciata). This was
supposedly conveyed to Heiko but by then the damage was done and the fish had
been spread out to other hobbyists in Europe.
After Allen's article in TFH dealing with recollecting in Lake sentani and
collecting the real thing in Carwash Creek a collector from Hawaii went over and
collected this fish, from that creek. It made it's way through him to another
RELIABLE breeder on the west coast of the US. It then was distributed through
the breeder on the west coast. Many people have since gotten that fish through
me. This fish is completely different than the European "senteniensis". I
would describe it more like a rocket that never stops swimming. It also
undergoes extreme colour changes, the ugliest/most boring color is shown in
Allen's Tetra book. Trying to get a good photo of something that literally
never stops moving is extremely difficult. BTW this fish is a real jumper.
When I would feed the young juveniles, I had on 2 separate occasions, caught a
fish in mid-air as it lept out of the tank. There were also several misses but
the jumpers survived. Some of this was from trying to get at the food although
the same sort of reaction would happen if they were badly startled as when
trying to clean the tank. One other thing that I think is totally bizarre about
these fish is that they often lay eggs on top of the styrefoam float on the mop.
The female actually flops up between the cover glass and the float and then the
male jumps up too. With all of the swirling that goes on I couldn't say that
they actually get up there at the same time though. Maybe it's just this
particular group of fish but I would certainly like to observe this fish in the
wild. They might actually be laying their eggs on overhanging tree limbs. Of
all of the rainbows I have raised this is really the first one that jumps out of
the water to lay them!
Gary Lange
Rainbowfish Study Group