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

Oncidium meirax, now Cyrtochilum meirax

Ondium meirax, an orchid native of Puerto Rico, now known as Cyrtochilum meirax

Plant growing in situ

The Sierra Palm forest, habitat of this orchid

Dona Juana waterfall, in the habitat of this orchid

I spent December 12, 13 and 14 of 2006, driving around the mountainous interior of the island of Puerto Rico. I am lucky enough to have a friend, J. Alvarez that doesn’t mind driving meanwhile I keep an eye out for orchids. I saw a great many plants, mostly Epidendrum, almost all without flowers. Wiggling through a heavily forested section of Palm forest I was lucky enough to find a fallen branch with some Oncidium plants in flower and in fruit. It is not often that I see these plants at all let alone in bloom. In my experience plants that hail from the Sierra Palm forest or the higher Elfin forest are doomed to die when cultivated in the lowland environment in Puerto Rico, they are best left in place. The plants die because the average grower in PR lacks the necessary equipment to provide the proper environment for these cloud forest ephiphytes.The Oncidium was found at an altitude of more than 3,500 feet in one of the highest peaks of the island of PR. The tree that harbored the plants was loaded with ephiphytes of all kinds as well as many plants of this Oncidium. The plants are in little danger of being collected due to the fact that the tree that harbors them grows alongside a dizzying high cliff. Reaching even the lowest branch means risking life and limb. Fortunately a broken branch was caught in a tangle of vines that prevented it from falling into oblivion. The plant was photographed in situ. Almost all plants had fruits and a few had flowers. The plants are tiny and easily confused with seedlings of the much more common Oncidium altissimun. The plants pseudobulbs and all are at most three to four inches tall. The inflorescenses are about three to four inches long. The plants are not conspicuous and the flowers are small and easily missed if you are not familiar with these orchids. The branch was sopping wet and mostly rotted, its surface loaded with fungi and sundry ephiphytes. No plants were seen in any of the trees that were near the host tree or in the palms. My books say this plant is Oncidium meirax.The area where the plant was found receives constant and precipitation almost year round in the form of rain, drizzle, and fog. The area where the plant was found is dominated by Sierra palm, with possibly thousands of palms growing together in dense strands. I kept to the edge of the forest because the ground was so slippery that there was the constant threat of falling. Given the steep mountain sides and the ubiquitous rocks I had to thread exceedingly carefully around the tree roots. Here are some of my observations.

Temperature: It can range from the high eighties in the middle of the day in the peak of summer to the middle fifties at night in the peak of winter. When I have visited the forest the temperatures have fluctuated between 65F and 80F.

Substrate: Sopping wet wood full of all manner of fungi and roots and other ephiphytes. Everything in the area was dripping water when I visited the spot.

Lightning: Very variable often going from one extreme of the spectrum to the other in manner of minutes. The plants are protected from the worst of it by the canopy of leaves of the host tree but since some of the plants I saw were growing high on the tree it is probable they are subjected to a constantly changing level of light exposure that went from very harsh direct sunlight to low diffused light when fog envelopes the forest.

Watering: It rains constantly, the area I visited probably get more than 160 inches of rain a year. Except for a few weeks during the dry season, it is probable these plants are drenched almost round the clock day in and day out.Humidity: 100% at night almost every night of the year. Probably close to 100% during the day for most of the year.Blooming: I found a few plants with flowers, I don’t know if this is this plant flowering season.The place was windy during my visit, it is clear from the shape of the trees that the area can get high winds with some regularity.