Re: [Killietalk] Orestias

[H_Wischmann at t-online.de (Hubert Wischmann)]

Brian,
I'am not an expert in Orestias, but I can give you some "second hand" information about Orestias "in Germany".
In 2000, the convention of the DKG took place in Hamburg. 
Professor Villwock was one of the speakers, and he told us a lot of their work with this killies, and he displayed some living Orestias in an aquarium.
I sure cannot remember everything, but it was obvious that it is impossible to nearly every "normal" aquarist, to maintain Orestias, no idea to think about breading.
At the Aquarium of the Hamburg University they had a special room for this fishes, which was (or is?) cooled down to a pleasant 12° C ( about 53° F) and which should only be entered very carefully from only some people - he said, if the fishes were disturbed, it could take up to two weeks, befor they show normal behavior again. A lot of their living seems like slow-motion...
The identification of the different species was not easy, for the some older desriptions are based on the oder of the scales, or on the missing of scales at parts of the body.
After first having the possibility to look for living specimens over a longer time, they recogniced, that the scales change during their lives, one fish beeing in the scale-order of different species as young, middle-old or adult.
Very confusing...
In additon to all this problems, the fishes I saw looked a lot like oversized Notho-females. Not very colorfull, not very interesting from shape of body or fins... 
Im pretty sure, fishes of this genus will not be a great sucess for the NEW&RARE SPECIES COMMITTEE.
Hubert Wischmann
Oberhausen
Germany


To join the AKA see http://www.aka.org/pages/join.html
Archives are at http://fins.actwin.com/killietalk/