The photo is of a mature male Particolor Dolphin Cichlid.
Our Dolphin Cichlids, which presently come in several varieties including Particolor, Royal Blue, Blue OB, Gold OB, Red-Finned Blue, Skyblue OB, and Blue & Gold, are aquarium strains we’ve been working on since 2006. To develop these strains, we started with a handful of males with dolphin-like humps on their heads and crossed them into our Peacock Cichlid strains and then mated the resulting females back to the original males to set the dolphin characteristic. Since them we’ve selected for the different color strains listed above. Interestingly enough, this process was slowed by an unexpected skewed sex ratio; about 95% of the offspring are male. While this is beneficial for sales, it makes it hard to maintain breeding colonies. At present we have accumulated about 130 breeding females, mostly Blue OB and Royal Blue.
The pictured male is our Particolor Dolphin breeder. He has quite a harem of females and fry and juveniles are showing up in his vat. He is fairly young and his hump will grow. Like all of our Dolphin Cichlids, he will get very large, probably 10-11” in length. I’m hoping his descendants will have large humps and maybe even brighter colors.
All of the Dolphin Cichlids are popular with our aquarium maintenance customers since they are large, colorful, calm, and not overly aggressive. They have a high visual impact in a large aquarium. Like most of our cichlids they also have long life spans, at least 8 years.
Charles says
Did you all stop breeding your ob dolphins?
Charles Clapsaddle says
We are raising them, but aren’t offering them until we resolve some shipping costs issues.
Mark says
Do you still have OB Dolphins?
Charles Clapsaddle says
Mark, Yes we do, but as a result of recovering from Hurricane Harvey our Dolphin breeding programs were setback. We have our breeding colonies going again and will release Dolphins later this summer.
brandon m says
When can I purchase?
Charles Clapsaddle says
Brandon,
Our Dolphin breeding programs got setback by Hurricane Harvey and our long, long recovery from it. Our breeding colonies are now going and we should have fish this fall.
Charles
Connor says
Hello there I just have a couple of questions. Are these fish just OB peacocks with dolphin like traits or have they actually been crossed with a dolphin cichlid? Also I have seen you have had an unfortunate set back from Hurricane Harvey. Have you recovered from this incident and are these fish available again? I’m from England and would love to get hold of one.
Many thanks,
Connor
Charles Clapsaddle says
Connor,
These are Peacocks with a hump trait sort of like that of Cyrtocara moorii, but not usually as pronounced. My records show that I started with a single male probably in 2005. It was most likely one of our harvested feral cichlids from our sump, but I’m not sure. (To see videos of our sump fish, to go our YouTube channel. Here’s one of the videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrQan0NlIho&t=5s.) He was set up with some females, yielding a few males that were humped. In 2006 we set up some of those males with similarly colored females and began selecting for humps. Currently we are working with six lines of dolphins descended from those fish. These are Royal Blue, Blue&Green, Red-finned Blue, Blue OB, Gold OB, and Particolor OB. Also, I have aside a male I am calling Sunshine Dolphin.
I have toyed with the idea of outcrossing C. moorii to improve the humps, but have first wanted to see if selection within the existing lines could yield good humps.
We did have setbacks in our breeding programs due to Hurricane Harvey, but the Dolphins are mostly recovered and we do have some available. Unfortunately, we only ship to Europe to accredited institutions such as zoos and universities.
We continue to work toward improved humps, especially for early hump development in the males. Humps develop late in these lines at 10-12 months.
As an aside, we seem to have corrected the imbalance in sexes and now yield closer to even sex ratios.
Charles
Danny says
G’day Charles.
I would like to try to create an OB cyrtocara moorii that retains its shape and blue base color. Do you have any suitable OB females with such traits that I could work with?
I live in Ohio. Thanks,
Danny
Charles Clapsaddle says
Danny,
We have a number of Peacocks and Dolphins that might work. I’d be inclined to use Skyblue Peacock females, but Royal Blue Dolphins and Blue Peacocks might work too. But, keep in mind, the Cyrtocara moorii/peacock offspring are not C. moorii and shouldn’t be listed as such.
Charles
Danny says
Thank you Charles! I agree with you totally on your recommendation of the sky blue peacock or royal blue dolphin females! Yes, agreed also that the hybrid offspring should not be listed as c. moorii. I have seen a line listed as OB dolphins which is probably appropriate with the use of the trade name v the scientific name. Thanks Charles. I’ll be in touch!
Danny
Charles Clapsaddle says
Danny, I look foward to seeing your progress.
Charles