Amazona ventralis, the hispaniolan parrot, in flight

This photo shows particularly well the belly area of a hispaniolan parrot.  The colors of the belly of the hispaniolan parrot can be used, along with other things, to ID this species.  One of the most distictive characteristics of the hispaniolan parrot is its white forehead.  The blue patches just behind the eyes are also useful to identify this species.  But it is the combined observation of the various traits that can give you the best confidence that you have correctly identifed this species.  In this photo you can see the white forehead, the blue patch behind the eye, the red patches in front of the legs and the red tail feathers.  This bird was photographed in one of the Rio Abajo aviary flight cages.  Hispaniolan parrots are used here as foster parent to eggs and chicks of the Puerto Rican parrot.  They are not for sale.  A selected few of these birds stay in the project their entire life where they receive exactly same care as the PR parrots.  Because the hispanionan parrots on ocasion are allowed to raise their own chicks, we produce a small number of birds of this species.  Some of the chicks stay in the program, most are sent to the Dominican Republic where a number of them have been released into the wild in El Parque del Este.  The USFWS sometimes keeps a few in the Iguaca aviary hispaniolan flock.

Here you can see the flight feathers.  The flight feathers are black and navy blue.  The colors of the flight feathers of the hispaniolan parrots is different from the color of the same feathers in the PR parrot.  In the PR parrot the flight feathers are turquoise.  This photo is of Ivan.  He if flying in the Rio Abajo bird hospital room.  Sometimes birds have to be hospitalized for a few days to receive treatments.  If they are alone in the hospital they can become depressed.  Ivan was born in May 2012, I plan to use him as a companion parrot to birds in the hospital.  Ivan is relaxed among humans and is familiar with the inside of office and the hospital.  I hope his generally unstressed demeanor among humans will be reassuring to birds in the hospital.  I have to add that infectious diseases are extremely rare in the RA aviary, almost all the birds that end up in the hospital do so because they need treatment for accidents or scrapes due to fighting .  After a few days of antibiotics they are sent back to their cages none worse for the wear.  In the case of a suspicion of an infectious disease we have a separate quarantine building that is used for this cases. 

Working on an artificial nest used by a wild pair of Amazona vittata, the Puerto Rican parrot

Ivan Llerandi Roman the leader of the wild release project, note all the equipment hanging from Ivan's utility belt

Gustavo Olivieri

An artificial nest high up in a tree

A wild female turning the eggs, they turn the eggs over every fifteen minutes on average

A baby that has just hatched is gently cupped under the wing by the female, you can see the part of the egg shell under the head of the female.  You can see the head of the newly hatched baby near the center of the photo.

Eddie Velez

The top part of the cage in the photo is about twenty feet all.

One of the more secretive aspects of the parrot project is the work that is done with the wild nests.  The reason for the secrecy is to protect the nests from unwanted human intervention which can, sad to say, include the theft of the nestlings for sale.  Unfortunately even well meaning people can cause a nest to fail if they try to approach it when the parrots are nesting.    Therefore the work of the people that manage the nests in the wild is practically unknown by the general public.  Another problem that affects the recognition of the achievements of the field workers in the area of nest management is that most of this work takes place deep in forested areas where the conditions generally are not conductive for good photography.  As a result this work is rarely documented and even more rarely described on print.  The need for artificial nests in the wild is due to the fact that for centuries and all the way up to the middle of the twenty century the main fuel for the island was wood.  As a result there was severe deforestation on many parts of the island and even on places where the forest now appears in a reasonably good health old trees are few and far between.  Also at the start of the twenty century there was a forestry theory that deemed old, hole ridden, mature trees less desirable than young trees which were still growing vigorously.  As a result in some forest areas old trees were cut down to encourage new growth. 

But in 2009 and 2010 we had the unexpected opportunity to document the work in a nest in a tree inside the aviary.  It has to be noted that the wild release staff pretty unhappy with the location of this nest.  Its location inside the aviary grounds raised all sort of issues about unintended disturbance of the breeders during our daily work at the aviary.  But they had to submit to the will of the parrot pair that signaled they wanted to nest in this particular area, and that was that.  The pair that chose this nest is the one whose male is known by the nickname “Scarface”.   The “Scarface” pair had been haunting the area around the aviary for a couple of years and had rejected or ignored all the nests that were offered in other areas.  For some reason known only to them, the pair decided that they wanted to nest inside the aviary.  Those that are old hands at the PR parrot project know that this is a startling, unheard of situation as wild nests in the east part of the island in the Luquillo mountains are in rugged, hard to get locations, well away from human habitation and the possibility of human disturbance.    But the silver lining in this particular case is that secrecy is not needed as the nest is closely, and jealously,  guarded by the staff.  The way we adapted to the presence of the breeding pair and the tolerance they showed for our rhythm of work helped bring a collective sigh of relief from everybody as from historical reports we know that Puertorican parrots nests have been abandoned over disturbances that other bird species would have ignored.

The tree where the artificial nest is located has to be prepared to receive the nest and fitted with the necessary infrastructure that allows maintenance and checking of the nest.  This particular nest has a close circuit camera that operates in the infrared region of the spectrum, this allows us to check the birds without disturbing their nesting activities.

The photos posted shows work done is 2009 and 2010.  Working with wild nests demands stamina, impressive upper level strength and the ability to work while hanging from ropes in leg and butt numbing positions.  Obviously a lack of fear of height is a must in this kind of work, you will notice that there is a large vanilla orchid on top of the nest, I have never climbed there to check that orchid out.

The nest needs to be fitted with wooden entrances to allow the birds to gnaw on the wood of the entrance, an important part of their nest choosing/preparing procedure.   The nest is also checked periodically during the breeding season to see the condition of the eggs and chicks and to band the chicks.

 To our great happiness the clutch in the nest was incubated flawlessly by the female.  The pair raised two healthy babies than on due time fledged from the nest.  I had the opportunity to observe closely and in unparalleled comfort (in relation to the experience of watching  other nests wild nests both in El Yunque and Rio Abajo) the whole breeding cycle.

I hope these photos give you an idea of the strenuous nature of this little known aspect of our work that is as crucial for the survival of the population at the Rio Abajo forest as the more widely publicized aspects of iur operation.  I would ask of all of you that if you come across a parrot nest in the wild, please do not, under any condition, try to climb the tree or disturb the parrots in any way, this will only make our work much, much harder and may make the parrots abandon the area altogether.   Another reason not to climb up to the nest is the very real possibility of falling from the tree.  Finding someone with its neck broken from a fall who has died sloooowly while being eaten alive by fire ants, centipedes and eyeball and brain gouging beetles would probably leave us inconsolable for about ten seconds after which we would have to make arrangements to drag the body out of the forest, notify the next of kin and present a nomination for a Darwin award on behalf of the dumb-as-a-doorknob deceased.

I want to add that if we notice anyone disturbing the parrots on their nesting areas we will call the local police, notify the federal government, the vigilantes of the DNER and I will personally call their mothers to tell them in no uncertain terms what horribly inconsiderate children they have.   So far we have had absolutely no problems with anyone bothering the parrots or their nests and we hope it stays this way.

Hemichromis lifalili, las crías llegan a los dos meses de edad con los padres.

El macho ha crecido a un tamaño superior a la hembra

Cría cambiando de patrón de color

El macho con algunas de la crias

 Las crías de los Hemichromis lifalili están cerca de cumplir los dos meses.  Para mi deleite los padres demuestran una tolerancia sorprendente con respecto a sus crías.  Porque me sorprende que los toleren?  Porque los peces Joya son conocidos por el fenómeno de canibalismo filial.  Que es el canibalismo filial?  El canibalismo filial ocurre cuando los adultos de una especie consumen a sus crías.  El ejemplo más trágico de este fenómeno es el pez ángel  Pterophyllum scalare. El pez ángel ha sido reproducido en masa en cautiverio décadas quitándole los huevos a los adultos y criándolos artificialmente.  Esto ha causado que los ángeles hayan perdido su instinto de proteger a sus crías y siempre terminen devorando sus huevos o crías.  Hace como diez años leí un artículo que decía que el 98% de los ángeles eran incapaces de completar los pasos mas elementales del ciclo reproductivo.

 En el caso del pez Joya el canibalismo filial se manifiesta cuando los padres pierden el instinto de cuidar a sus crías y las tratan como una presa más que está disponible para ser consumida.    Pero es importante aclarar que distinto a los peces ángeles el canibalismo en los peces Joya no ocurre al azar o por falta de instintos protectores, generalmente los padres se vuelven intolerantes de sus crías cuando están hormonalmente predispuestos a desovar nuevamente.    

Mis lifalili no han vuelto a desovar y hasta han engordado un poco desde el último desove.  Lo que creo es que las bajas temperaturas que han predominado en mi área por las pasadas semanas han inhibido el ciclo reproductivo de los adultos.  La temperatura local ha bajado a los 64F grados por la noche y por el día se mantiene en los setenta.  Estas temperaturas son comparativamente frías para estos peces del área tropical de África.  Sin embargo no han mostrado ninguna señal de molestia o daño por causa de las temperaturas en el rango de los 60F.

Las crías ya no huyen de mí, al contrario, responden a mi presencia con entusiasmo y nadan hacia el cristal cada vez que me aparezco cerca de la pecera.  Consumen con gusto todo lo que les ofrezco de comer, incluso atacan pedazos de comida muy grandes para ellos.  Los pececillos más grandes ya están adoptando la coloración de dos puntos, uno en la base el rabo y otro en el medio del cuerpo, que es característica de los juveniles y adultos no reproductivos de lifalili.  He visto algunos de los pececillos incluso morder a sus padres, los padres no parecen molestarse por semejante impertinencia de sus crías.

El macho ya es significativamente más grande que la hembra y demuestra una conducta más confiada y curiosa ante mi presencia.  El color rojo que lo caracterizaba cuando ocurrió el desove es difícil de ver ya que ha adoptado una coloración de un color marrón oscuro.  Los puntos azules siguen siendo notables y se han vuelto el detalle más sobresaliente de la coloración del macho.

Ya se pueden ver en las crías los puntos negros característicos de los juveniles y los adultos

El macho no es tan tímido como la hembra y se acerca al cristal si algo estimula su curiosidad

El barbo Odessa, Puntius ticto, la belleza obsesiva compulsiva



Macho en librea de cortejo

Con buena alimentacion y un entorno mas oscuro los peces comenzaron a desarrollar un color mas acentuado

De los cuatro peces en la pecera, el macho dominante tenia el color mas brillante y hostigaba sin cesar a los otros machos

La hembra era considerablemente mas grande que los machos, la mantenia separada de ellos

Una vista frontal de la hembra

Cuando los machos vieron la hembra sufrieron un cambio drastico en la intensidad de su color y el rojo del cuerpo adquirio una intensidad nunca antes vista. 



Macho tras la llegada de la hembra





Debido a lo vigoroso del cortejo reproductivo fue necesario capturar al macho para poder fotografiar los colores del cortejo reproductivo en un trasfondo que resaltara los colores mas tenues

Debo confesar que no compre el barbo Odessa porque estuviera en ese momento particularmente interesado mantenerlos en mis peceras. La razón fue que me había comprometido a exhibir dos peceras plantadas en la actividad educativa anual de la Asociación de Acuaristas de Aguadilla del 2008 y quería usar un pez distinto a los que los demás tendrían en sus peceras.

Decidí que colocaría en la pecera peces que tuvieran un color metálico que contrastara con el color verde de las Echinodorus que formaban un césped en el fondo de la pecera que llevaría a la exhibicion. Un en abril 2008 visite un “pet shop” que se encontraba en la tienda Pitusa de Aguadilla. En el “pet shop” había una gran variedad de peces pero casi todos eran de las especies que siempre se encuentran en los mismos. Pero pude notar que en una pecera había unos barbos distintos de lo usual, después de examinarlos un tiempo llegue a la conclusión de que trataba de unos barbos Odessa (Puntius ticto) una especie que rara vez se ve por estos lares. Cuando vi a los Odessa la verdad es que no me impresionaron ya que casi no tenían color. Las fotos de estos peces que había visto con anterioridad tampoco indicaban que estos peces fueran de un color excepcional. Sin embargo su vibrante actividad y su color plateado me convencieron que serian una buena opción para exhibir en la pecera.

Para ponerlos en condición para la exhibición los libere en un estanque y comencé a alimentarlos con una amplia variedad de alimentos. El estanque en que estaban estos barbos se distingue por tener un fondo oscuro y una gran cantidad de vegetación sumergida. Debido a lo espeso de la vegetación no vi a los peces por varias semanas después de haberlos liberado. Como seis semanas después de haberlos adquirido me decidí a capturarlos para ver como habían progresado. Para mi sorpresa los peces habían adquirido un brillante color rojo en sus costados. No todos los peces tenían la misma intensidad de color pero todos estaban en muy buena condición.

El día de la exhibición los coloque en una pecera plantada de diez galones y allí pude observar la dinámica de la interacción entre estos peces. El macho dominante comenzó a hostigar a los demás despiadadamente, persiguiéndolos sin cesar. Algunos de los otros peces permanecieron por largos ratos ocultos entre la vegetación para evitar el constante hostigamiento. Pero esto no amilanaba al macho dominante que se pasaba todo el tiempo patrullando la pecera e investigando todo lo que le llamaba su atención. Como resultado los otros machos perdieron el color que tenían mientras que el macho dominante desarrollo un color rojo aun más pronunciado.

Después de la exhibición los peces regresaron al estanque ya que era claro que tenerlos en la pecera no era una buena idea. He tenido muchos barbos pero ninguno tan neurótico e hiperactivo. Si los hubiera dejado juntos en la pecera no tengo duda que el macho dominante hubiera causado la eventual muerte de los otros peces con su hostigamiento constante.

Unos meses más tarde pude obtener una hembra. La hembra era significativamente más grande que los machos y el color de su cuerpo era gris y plateado. Como mantuve a la hembra sola no sé si ellas son tan agresivas y neuróticas como los machos. Una mañana coloque a dos machos en una pecera plantada de diez galones y al día siguiente libere a la hembra en la pecera.

En el instante en que los machos percibieron la hembra sus colores aumentaron en brillantez a un grado insospechado. No solo el rojo adquirió una intensidad impresionante si no que aparecieron tonos amarillos y hasta un punto azul que antes no era visible. Si la actividad de los machos antes de que llegara la hembra a la pecera era intensa, al llegar la hembra de desbordo en una hiperactividad frenética. Trate de fotografiar a los machos durante el proceso de cortejo pero se movían con tanta rapidez entre la vegetación que resulto imposible lograr una foto aceptable. Por lo tanto me vi obligado a capturar uno de los machos y fotografiarlo en el cedazo. En la foto del macho en el cedazo es posible observar el intenso colorido del macho durante el cortejo que lleva al desove. Le confieso que jamás hubiera pensado que estos barbos eran capaces de alcanzar una coloración tan brillante. Y quiero aclarar el color es exactamente como se ve en las fotos. Estas no han sido como se dice en el argot popular, sazonadas con “Photoshop”.

A pesar del entusiasmo de los reproductores no pude observar que la pareja pusiera huevos y jamás encontré alevines en la pecera. Víctor Oliver “Pucho” me comento que estos peces desovaron en sus peceras pero que los huevos no eclosionaron, no es claro si eran o no infértiles. Separe los machos y la hembra y no volví a intentar desovarlos. La razón para no reproducirlos fue sencilla, en el momento no tenía el espacio para dedicarlo a las crías que se produjeran de ese evento de reproducción.

Los que interesen este pez solo tienen que seguir algunas normas sencillas para mantenerlo con éxito ya que no son muy exigentes. Para su mantenimiento use agua de lluvia y agua del sistema de acueductos sin ningún problema o que pudiera notar diferencia alguna en su bienestar en una u otra. La temperatura del agua en su entorno fluctuó entre los 75⁰F y 85⁰F, se portaban igual en ambos extremos de temperatura. La filtración era provista por un filtro externo Hagen de poca capacidad cuando estaban las peceras, en los estanques no había filtración alguna. Les cambiaba el agua en las peceras 50% cada semana. Son omnívoros y comían de todo, “flakes”, “pellets” de varios tipos, “bloodworms” y larvas de mosquito.

No creo que los pueda recomendar para peceras menores de treinta galones y aun estas las recomiendo si están densamente plantadas y los peces se pueden esconder del pez dominante. Así que, aunque no son peces tan grandes, la mejor pecera para ellos es una de cincuenta para arriba. Los machos son agresivos con su propia especie, como jamás estuvieron con otras especies de peces no puedo dar fe de que sean un problema pero me puedo imaginar que especies de peces más delicadas y tranquilas serian víctimas de la agresión por parte de los machos. Peces menos agiles probablemente se morirían de hambre si se juntan con estos peces tan glotones y rápidos a la hora de comer. El color de estos peces está íntimamente atado al estado de ánimo del pez. Peces en una pecera muy iluminada y sin lugares donde esconderse tienen un color plateado y se comportan de forma tímida y huidiza. Para ver a los peces en su mejor color es necesario usar una iluminación tenue en la pecera y que la pecera tenga lugares donde los peces se puedan refugiar si se alarman. Los mejores colores los tienen cuando están en un grupo, si no hay otros de su especie los colores de estos peces se apagan considerablemente. Otros acuaristas recomiendan tenerlos en grupos.

Los peces vivieron como un año y luego comenzaron a morir, no es claro de que se murieron. El ultimo en morir fue el macho dominante. Me imagino que murió de depresión ya que no tenía a quien perseguir durante todo el día.

The female red jewel fish Hemichromis lifalili and her fry

The eggs of the female Hemichromis lifalili about which I wrote in an earlier post hatched during the weekend. The fry are now at the bottom of the cavity where spawning occurred. The fry are full of vibrant activity as they all move their tiny tails incessantly. At this stage of their development they are called fry because they hardly resemble a proper fish. In the image you can see the mass fry but only the yolk sacs can be seen clearly. The yolk sacks are attached to the belly of the fry. The fry are little more than a line of muscle tissue a few millimeters long. Because the fry are vigorously shaking their tiny bodies and are transparent they cannot be seen well in the picture which shows the massed fry. But we can distinguish some black dots above the yolk sacs. These dots give rise to the eyes and nervous system of fishes.
The female defends her fry with impressive ferocity, in the images we can see that it has a bite on the area over the mouth. I do not know which of the fish in the tank bit her but I suspect it was the male with whom she spawned . To my surprise the female was aggressive when the male approached the spawning cave and stopped him from to entering it. She blocked him from entering where the the fry were by arching her body and lifting the scales covering the gills. The male spent most of his time on the other side of the tank with the other fish, his level of aggressiveness was mild compared with that of the female.
The previous spawning that occurred in the tank was the product of the male of this spawning but with a different female. Apparently the male lost interest in that spawning the moment the fry were born and left the female alone to defending their offspring. The female of the previous spawning took the fry from the trunk and hid it in a depression in the material at the bottom of the tank, but she could not defend the fry from the other fish and lost them all.
In a few days the female of this photo also have to move their young to the bottom of the tank to allow them to forage for food. It remains to be seen whether the male will help her defend them. From what I could see the males showed a somewhat ambiguous behavior, he seemed to behave aggressively but at the same time he was obviously eyeing the other females, the latter development does not augur well for the survival of the fry.

A red Jewel fish (Hemichromis lifalili) female tending her eggs

In this image we can see a female lifalili tending her recently spawned eggs. The female is using her pectoral fins to create currents of water over the eggs so that they receive the oxygen they need to live. The female also mouths the eggs. I have read that the female removes from the spawn those eggs that become infected by fungus. This spawn is in an immaculate condition so it seems that the female is successfully managing to control the attack of the fungus on her eggs . This is the second spawning of my lifalili. These fish have been surprisingly precocious, they began to spawn when just a little bit over about two inches in lenght, about four weeks after they are acquired. It is said that adults can reach six inches long but the most of those I've seen locally are no more than four. When these fish are in the process of spawning they become especially aggressive toward other fish. To achieve this image I had to plan carefully how to provide them with a suitable spawning site that would also allow for ease of photographing. The lifalili seem to prefer spawning in enclosed areas. For this reason it is common for aquarists to provide them with terracotta pots usually placed on their side. The problem is that this type of arrangement, in a tank like mine, makes it difficult to photograph the fish caring for the eggs and fry. I put in the tank two pieces of ceramic that resemble a mass of roots and which have at their top tubular cavities that open toward the surface.. To reduce the potential of a spawning in a hidden or inaccessible elsewhere in the tank I do not use any other object that has a cavity suitable for spawning. Since the opening of the cavity is facing the surface it is relatively easy to photograph the female taking care of the eggs.

Zoogoneticus tequila, English version

They come from central Mexico, the females are assertive, powerful and the males desire and fear them. The males are handsome, aggressive but cannot avoid being controlled by the females which henpeck them mercilessly. I'm not referring in these lines to the plot Mexico's latest soap, but the behavior of the viviparous Mexican fish Zoogoneticus tequila.

The Zoogoneticus tequila is known in English as the "Crescent Goodeid" due to the coloration of the tail fin of the male or the "Tequila splitfin" in recognition of the anatomy of the anal fin of fish in the Goodeidae family. I don't know if it has been awarded a common name in Spanish as it is not available locally in the commercial aquarium trade but in this article it will be called the Tequila. The Tequila nickname refers to a volcano in the vicinity of its natural habitat. Fish of the Goodeidae family are distinguished by a number of fascinating biological and anatomical adaptations that separate them from other livebearers, these make them an interesting subject for the aquarist. Their behavior is also of interest because unlike other viviparous fished Zoogoneticus interacts with other fish in the same way that Mike Tyson interacted with Evander Hollyfield's ear in that unforgetable fight.
We will start by detailing the reproductive adaptations of this species. The male fish of the family Goodeidae lack a gonopodium, this immediately distinguishes Zoogoneticus from other viviparous fish common in the market such as guppies, swordtails and mollies. Because they have no specialized structure such as the gonopodium, males use the first few anal fin spines to transfer sperm to the female. The females do not store sperm so they have to be fertilized every time they produce a litter, in this respect they are unlike the Poeciliae such as guppies and mollies. The young develop inside the female and produce a structure called trophotaenia which comes out of their bellies and allow them to absorb nutrients from the mother's body. The females produce relatively few offspring compared with other livebearers, 10 to 15, but the young are much larger than usual in viviparous fish. The attitude of adults towards the young is similar the way Herod treated his own children. Adults actively hunt the young, they should be separated from them so they can survive. It is reported that the female gives birth roughly every two months.

Some species of the genus Zoogoneticus seem to have very restricted geographic distributions. Tequila has not been collected in the wild since 1990 and it is suspected it might have become extinct in the wild. Tequila was recognized as a new species in 1998 even though specimens had been collected since 1955. The species Tequila is related very closely with Zoogoneticus quitzeoensis described in 1898 and Zoo. purhepechus a new species described in 2008. Its origin lie in the state of Jalisco, in the river Teuchitlan.

Males are grayish, some scales of the sides of the body show a pink iridicensce. The females are generally gray but the ones I have show a fairly dark color probably because the level of illumination in their aquarium is low. My fish are still young so it is likely they will continue to change color as they mature.

I keep the fish in a tank 30 gallon long. The water in the tank has a pH of 7. The tank has no conventional ornaments. The bottom is covered with teak leaf litter, a soft mud that has resulted from the decomposition of the leaves and algae that has covered the remains of the leaves. Laying just below the water surface is a mass of plants, mainly Hygrophyla difformis. The temperature of the tank varies between 70F and 80F. I change about 80% of the tank water every two weeks.

The fish are fed three times a day, in the morning when I go to work, noon and in the evening just before sunset. If anything can be said of these fish is they eat everything I offer with a breathtaking lack of discriminating criteria. The cheapest flake food is eaten with the same zeal as the mosquito larvae,"bloodworms" and food pellets. I try to vary the diet a bit every day and while some days I give them bits of minced shrimp in others I give pellets. Different sources recommended that these fish should be fed with a vegetable-based food. But as the tank has a good growth of algae, I have not bothered to give any special vegetable based food.

In the beginning there were five Tequila in the tank, three females and two males. But the two largest females harassed the younger in a manner so barbarous I suspect it was killed or that it may have jumped from the tank as it disappeared a few days after they arrived at my home. This is illustrative of the character of this species. They are aggressive fish, truculent and lacking in subtlety. In short they have an horror of a personality. In this they are the veritable antithesis of the ideal fish we want in a community tank.

Tequila breeders recommended keeping this species in a species only aquarium. During a normal day the largest male harrases several times the smaller one. Males approach females with caution since unreceptive females can bite. Not a day has passed without seeing that a Tequila has lost a scale here or there or has a bite in one fin.

What role can play in our aquarium a fish with so abhorrent a personality?. It turns out that the inclination for discord and contention of this fish makes it perfect for aquariums with small cichlids of like personality. But its role is not simply to share the aquarium, the Tequila with their challenging personality can provide a distraction for the cichlids. By diverting the attention of the cichlids they can ameliorate in a small degree intraspecific aggression and when the reproduction of the cichlids occurs, the Tequila become a catalyst for the protective instincts of the cichlids toward their young.

My Tequila share a tank with five jewelfish juveniles, Hemichromis lifalili, a jewelfish from Congo or Zaire. The lifalili are famous for two reasons, one is that when breeding they develop one of the most spectacularly colorful nuptial dress of any freshwater fish. The other is their unfortunate tendency to murder, in a violent and bloody way, all the other fish when they have young to protect.

Even when they are young and small the lifalili are far from being like Mother Teresa and they spend a lot of time chasing and attacking each other. Sometimes they harass the Tequila in an absent minded sort of tokenish way, they reserve their worst venom for their own kind. So far as I can tell, I have not noticed that any lifalili has caused any apreciable harm to the Tequila, to the contrary, subdominant lifalili often spend much time hiding in the vegetation along with the long suffering Tequila males.

You should realize that in spite of what I recommend above, you can't drop the Tequila in a tank with cichlids and expect everything to be peaches and cream. Nothing can be further from the truth! There is no faster way to kill a Tequila that throwing it in a aquariun where some territorial cichlids are tending their fry. The Tequila should be housed with the cichlids when the cichlids are still young and in a aquarium large enough for them to escape the aggression of cichlids. But that is another theme and in the future I will dedicate an article to commenting it.

The Tequila are very alert of my presence near the tank and watch me intently when I sit down to look at them. They are less shy than the cichlids and are not intimidated when I approach with a camera. Every day I spend some time observing them and the fish have learned that when I arrive in the afternoon there will be a special treat. So when I sit next to the aquarium just before night fall they react with great excitement. They are so bold that I've seen the whisk away a piece of shrimp from a cichlid with such speed that the cichlid is left wondering what happened.

The Tequila eventually will be moved to their own tank as the adults lifalili reach a size of about six inches and even before reaching this size they become a mortal danger to the other fish when they have a school of young to protect.

As you have seen the fish Tequila are not for everyone. But they have a certain charm, in an horribly obnoxious way, that transcends the absence of bright colors and peaceful behavior