Stellatus type Gastros

[mikev]

I'm trying to inventory the Gastros here a bit, and your comments on Stellatus-type Gastros would be very helpful.

There are four Gastros here with a pattern that indicates them being in the Ridens group. They appear to me to belong to two different species.

1.

2.

There is one of type 1, and three of type 2. Type 2 have a finer pattern, they are also very likely to lose the coloration (can become almost white on a light background), body color ranges from white to medium gray, almost never black, even on dark background.

The behavior is also a little different: Type 2 are more outgoing and have a hysterical reaction on frozen shrimp (all the Gastros here do, but these are the worst). Strangely, they also seem to hang together a lot of time.

Any idea which ones are G.Stellatus and what may be the other Gastro?

TIA

[Graeme Robson]

1) A wild looking Gastromyzon zebrinus or a Gastromyzon crenastus

2) A normal looking Gastromyzon stellatus

[mikev]

Thanks a lot, Graeme,

If I can bother you with one more:

Any reasons to think that the Gastro shown here is not an ordinary G.Ocellatus?

(The reason I'm in doubt is the behavior: G.Ocellatus is supposed to be about the most peaceful Gastro species. These guys (3) are very outgoing, fighting between themselves, picking on Chenis--losing but trying again, and keeping a larger G.cteno hiding from them)

[Graeme Robson]

It looks like a normal Gastromyzon occelatus for my eyes. I've noticed with my Gastromyzon occelatus is that they tend to move to different locations within the aquarium. Mine seem curious as to what is happening or at least are "looking by" when any disputes happen with different species.

You may have 3 males who are suffering from a alter-ego

[Jim Powers]

I agree with Graeme on this.
Type one could be a nontypical stellatus too, though.
Type two is definately a stellatus.
As for the occellatus, it sounds typical to me.
When I first got my oldest occellatus five years ago, they were subordinate to the smaller ctenos. As they grew even larger, however, that changed. Now they are the dominate hillstreams in the tank.
There are no chenis in that tank, though.
I do have one in with a cheni pair in another tank and it seems to be subordinate to the chenis, but less so than it did when I first got it.
Occellatus tend to get rather large for gastros so I think they are just using their bulk just as large beaufortia and sewellia do.

[mikev]

Thank you!

I doubt Type1 is the same species...the pattern is different, and it never grays out whereas the other ones are very similar to each other and are light gray most of the the time.

The Ocellatus are new and not particularly large (1.5"). I was a little surprised by their level of activity: they pick up fights between themselves and with the Chenis.
I guess every tank is different....The largest hillstreams in this tank are a 2" Cheni (former Alpha) and a nearly 2" G.cteno (possibly scitulus, fights only smaller Cteno's...., avoids Chenis and Ocellatus). The Alpha fish now is clearly a 1.5" Cheni, there was a revolution two weeks ago and he displaced the large one (I'm watching the former Alpha for disease signs or wounds just in case...nothing).

Let me follow what Graeme said and try to check them for fences...otherwise the power balance here does not make much sense.

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Append: the 3 Type2's are also often together:



with the Type1 not joining them. Notice the color difference: Type1 is the same body color as the Ocellatus.

PS. There is one real weird thing about Stellatus (Type2): they don't care about being topped. During the last feeding, one of them was topped by a small Cheni (this is nothing), then by the Alpha Cheni (this is serious), and it simply continued eating like if nothing was happening....

[mikev]

It is frustrating...my photo skills are just a bit worse than is needed to check if Graeme is correct about 3 males. On all three the first 5-6 rays look different, but I cannot be sure these are fences:



This fellow is the new tank Alpha. Chenis are out of power, the most valued cluster of stones is covered by G.Ocellatus (who do indeed wander all over the tank, but return to reclaim the stones on each feeding).

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Did anyone here see G.Stellatus fighting each other? This happened today and was very strange: they did exactly the same as G.Ocellatusdo but at perhaps 1/3 of the speed: real slow motion, this should make fighting meaningless???