Fish ID please

[Steve]

Just came home with this fish about 10 mins ago. I dunno why, just something about him spoke to me. He's mostly silver/whitish which is what somewhat attracted me to him. And for only $10 out the door I had to give him a home. He's about 4". Anyone help ID maybe what he could be?

[Steve]

BTW that's not two fish, it's just him and his reflection, but I thought the front and side view in one shot would be helpful.

[Regalblue]

More pictures please....  kinda Looks like an Experatus though

[Steve]

Another....

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Let me see if I can't snap a better of him though Blair...

[Steve]

Hopefully this is a better one Blair...
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[Regalblue]

Does it look like this?
http://www.malawimayhem.com/images/profiles/Melano_exasp_f.jpg

If so it's an Experatus

[Ron]

M. exasperatus is a good guess.

M. joanjohnsonae is what I thought of first. 

I'm not 100% sold on the head shape to decree this fish as both of those. The mouth just seems a bit pointed, which for Melanochromis is typically is relative to other mbuna, but I don't know. I'd just accept him as a pretty fish you enjoy and call it a day.

[Steve]

I put him into the 55g Mbuna tank on Friday. I was transfering the male Mbamba bay that I picked up from Blair a couple months ago to the 55g from the grow out tank because he's a good 3" now and I didn;t want to add just the Mbamba bay on his own because I was afraid he would get picked on. So I moved this guy as well so there would be two new fish in the 55g. Every since I moved him on Friday I noticed that he started changing colors in the new tank. Now today he looks like a totally different fish than when I bought him. He has taken on a really nice blue color and seems a bit more bluish with each day.

[Regalblue]

Does it look like the picture I posted above? 

It's not looking too hot with that sunken belly & being all barred up.

[Steve]

The picture you posted doesn't show up Blair, it just takes me to a page that says hot linking is not allowed so I can't see what you posted. His belly isn't really sunken at all I think it's more or less just the angle the picture is taken on because he eats very well all the time and is very active.

[Regalblue]

Google Melanochromis Experatus,  Labidochromis Textilis & Joanjohnsonae

[Steve]

Google Melanochromis Experatus,  Labidochromis Textilis & Joanjohnsonae

Okay just looked at those. Both Melanochromis Experatus and Joanjohnsonae look to be very close to him but I think he might look just a tad more like Melanochromis Experatus from the google pictures I looked at.

[Ron]

Google Melanochromis Experatus,  Labidochromis Textilis & Joanjohnsonae

FWIW, M. exasperatus and M. joanjohnsonae are the same fish. (My prior comment was meant in jest). You may also find them listed as Labidochromis species.

Labidochromis textilis is also very, very similar and is sometimes thought to be the same fish as well, but Ad Konings considers it different, so I do too.

[Steve]

FWIW, M. exasperatus and M. joanjohnsonae are the same fish.

Okay good to know, I did not know that. I can't keep up on all the species yet lol. The ones I found under joanjohnsonae looked a bit different than the ones that came up under exasperatus but I'm guessing that's just different stages of them looking a bit different maybe then.

Why do they have two names for the same fish though? that seems weird to me.

[Ron]

Why do they have two names for the same fish though? that seems weird to me.

Someone discovered one, then someone discovered another group and thought enough difference existed to suggest it's a different species, so they named it as well. Then later on it was decided that they are essentially the same fish (~1990 IIRC). At this point one of those names is technically correct and the others aren't ("others" also including L. exasperatus  and L. joanjohnsonae), but I'm not sure which specifically is the correct one at this point in time. 

It's similar to Pseudotropheus zebra, Metriclima estherae, and Maylandia estherae, ... "Red Zebra".