What's the next fish you're getting?

Go for it. What's a couple of hundred bucks? Lol. I've never seen purple Pencil fish.
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Personally I think they are the most or perhaps one of the two or three most attractive & colourful of the pencilfishes.

Very showy and easily seen with pale body colour and a lot of brilliant red with black stripes on the body.

Be totally awesome just to have them again but mind blowing if I could get them to reproduce.

Pics are of the ones I had a long time ago.
 

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Those are cool. Every once in a while we all go out on a financial limb to purchase prized specimens.
I've done it numerous times with no regrets.
 

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Those are cool. Every once in a while we all go out on a financial limb to purchase prized specimens.
I've done it numerous times with no regrets.
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I have spent stupid amounts of cash on some fish for sure over the years. It’s just that this month I have a ton of other expenses I really can’t blow off. Grrrr.

I get points at a LFS - not a big box outfit, small chain. 1 pt per dollar spent, 2 per dollar on Wednesdays. 5000 pt gets $200 in reward spending on anything and I currently have a little over 15,000 pts. My bucket list 125g tank in other words.

To acquire them all has taken a LOT of years but still, it horrifies me that I have spent that much on my hobby :-).
 
I just saw a store not far from here has purple pencilfish- Nannostomus rubrocaudatus. Only 8, no idea about what sexes they have and they want $23.CAD per.

Ouch! But they are one of my absolute favourite species.

Decisions, decisions. Can I somehow scrape up the cash? Maybe if I eat mostly bread & pasta for a couple of months?? Arrhghh - hate when opportunity knocks like this when it’s been a tight month!
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Quantity discount? Plants or fish you can offer for partial credit? I hope you can work it out.
 
Quantity discount? Plants or fish you can offer for partial credit? I hope you can work it out.
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Thanks - they do offer discounts for buying multiples but not on all fish, just some. For those it applies to they offer 15% off for 3 or more. Does not apply to the pencilfish, naturally :-).

I WISH had plants to trade because they would take those but I have nothing to spare as I’m still trying to catch up with all the losses from my move.
 
I hear you on the belt tightening...but I have 8 of the gold ones and just love them. If I see anymore locally, I'm getting them.
Can they even be sexed? I was going to overlook them for some harlequin rasboras at the time, but I'm glad I had a sudden impulse to get them.
If I was running a book, I would give odds that you get them, if you're anything like me :)
 

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Well if things work out I'll be getting a couple of pairs of a. wolli and a. ladislao today around 11am. These are two less common species from the Nijjensi complex so pair forming. Sadly I think i'm out of space for aquariums so until something passes this will be it for a while.
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Oh yea i forgot to mention i picked up six cherry chocolate gourami; they are deliciously cute. They went into the 100 that has some stuff on the bottom and on the top it has hatchet fishes and emerald eye rasbora (highly recommended schooling species of rasbora). I keep this aquarium around 79 (cool side for cherry chocolate) and ec around 25. Its a nice aquarium but hard to find stuff in it because of all the leaves and hiding nooks. There is a group of a. bitaeniata on the bottom and one lone b. wavarni who is well adapted but could use some friends. I figure the cherry will stay closer to the top though i might have under-estimated the competition issue with the hatchet fishes. However they are will to go mid/lower level in search of food.
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Here is one of the cherry; the tank is pretty dark so the phone has to amplify the image quite a bit:
cherry.jpg
 
I hear you on the belt tightening...but I have 8 of the gold ones and just love them. If I see anymore locally, I'm getting them.
Can they even be sexed? I was going to overlook them for some harlequin rasboras at the time, but I'm glad I had a sudden impulse to get them.
If I was running a book, I would give odds that you get them, if you're anything like me :)
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If you mean Beckford’s pencilfish, the wild coloured ones don’t have blatant sexual dimorphism but there are differences. The red variant is easy to sex because only the males have the coppery red colouring.
 
If you mean Beckford’s pencilfish, the wild coloured ones don’t have blatant sexual dimorphism but there are differences. The red variant is easy to sex because only the males have the coppery red colouring.
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Even in the wild ones the males have more red on the fins.
 
I'm considering somewhere down the road, not any time soon, getting blue dream Neocaridina to reside with my Galaxy Koi Betta, Andromeda. I don't want to interfere with my shrimp tank I already have. They've got a good colony going.

Andromeda is way more chill than my other Betta, Sunset, was. Sunset was like a cobra and Andromeda is more like a butterfly. Lol. I'm hoping that might mean she'll be alright with new friends, though I know there's the chance of them becoming an expensive snack.

She doesn't flare or hunt the snails. Hoping that's a good sign. ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯
 

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Hoping to get a m/f pair of honey gourami’s along with some plants for my 20 high on Saturday.

Also within the next few months I’d like to get green neon tetras and habrosus Corydoras, but my store is currently out of stock. They get shipments every Thursday so maybe they’ll be back this weekend and I can get some as well.
 
Why not buy just a couple? If their easy to breed you may get many more.
 
Tomorrow I am getting in a Female Betta Mandor which I am very excited about
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That’s not a species one sees very often. Too bad you aren’t getting a pair - be good to breed them.

They’re on the ICUN red list - only known from two locations in Borneo which are both greatly disturbed by logging activity. so these guys are seriously endangered. They are very attractive fish though, no question about it.
 
Too bad you aren’t getting a pair - be good to breed them.
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I do have a pair and have been attempting to breed them. But the female I currently have refuses to pair with the male and each time they are together the male beats her up shredding her fins. Thankfully he hasn't killed her yet. I am unwilling to put my current female through anymore breeding attempts especially since each breeding attempt seems to end in more damage to her. She is fine right now the fins have healed up nicely since last time. My though process was that a different female may be more willing to breed with my current male but I will have to wait and see. And if neither female works well I am going to have to assume the male is the issue and hunt down a new one. But I want to take this one step at a time.
 
I do have a pair and have been attempting to breed them. But the female I currently have refuses to pair with the male and each time they are together the male beats her up shredding her fins. Thankfully he hasn't killed her yet. I am unwilling to put my current female through anymore breeding attempts especially since each breeding attempt seems to end in more damage to her. She is fine right now the fins have healed up nicely since last time. My thought process was that a different female may be more willing to breed with my current male but I will have to wait and see. And if neither female works well I am going to have to assume the male is the issue and hunt down a new one. But I want to take this one step at a time.
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Aha, that makes good sense. Can’t blame fish for having opinions about their mates - frustrating though it is. Hope this pairing is a successful one.
 
My next 'fish' will be a group of 20 to 30 c. hastatus with a small group of Hyphessobrycon Notidanos.

Also about a month ago i picked up a group of Trigonopoma pauciperforatum which turned out to be a bit nicer than expected. They school like emerald eye rasbora but have a bit more colour that shows well in a tank with a lot of tannis.
 

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No new fish for a while for me. Yesterday I got my special order of 30 Cardinal tetras which are now doing fine in two QTs. In a month or so, I’ll add 20 of the 30 to the 32 already in my 75g tank. This tank is all about a big school of CTs with some Corys for bottom action/cleaning.

Funny how we change….this same tank used to house Discus, Gouramis, Platies, among others and now its home to serene schools of CTs.
 
Today i hope to receive two interesting species:
red devil (small 1ish tetra)
and
a. sp ipiranga (a not very common mouth brooding species of apistogramma)
in addition i'll be getting
20 - big 2 0 - c. hastatus (ordered them 6 months ago ;) )
 
It will be a while before they arrive and hopefully they will be the correct species this time but i hope in mid to late October to receive a couple of pairs of a. lineta; these are a nice reddish fish which are describe as a curious critter and since i read the article about 3 years ago i had wanted them. Unfortunately they are rarely seen in the trade - not sure why - probably because they are a true blackwater fish in a very remote area that is probably not the easiest place to farm. With fingers crossed they will be true a. lineta and not some other funky species sold as a. lineta.
 
So a box arrived today and it contained the following:
8 epiplatys annulatus (they were so tiny you needed a magnifying glass to see them)
2 lamontichtyhys llanero (one of my favorite of the common whips)
6 paracheirodon simulans (these were even smaller than the epiplatys annulatus; so you needed TWO magnifying glasses to see them)
6 hypessobrycon herbertaxelrodi - these were actually nearly full grown
3 botia striata (these were a suprise - they were fairly small and usually i only get adults; when i put them in the tank the Mesonauta festivus started eyeing it and i was a little worried; even worse the tiny b. striata swam straight to the clown loaches and started taunting the m. festivus. Well the m. festivus couldn't take the taunting so it ate him. Well not really but i was a bit worried when it started taunting the larger fish.
6 brevibora dorsiocellata - these were a decent size - great for dark aquariums when you need a flashlight.
6 paracheirodon axelrodi - these were pretty small - was going to add them to the group with the discus but i think i'll have to grown them out for a few months first.
and finally
6 impaichthys keri - these were ok - not tiny tiny but certainly small.
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Nothing exotic 'cept the whips - i did take a few pictures; naw they all suck. Oh well maybe next time ;)

If only you could see the passage of time while i reviewed the pictures... alas forums are not very good at showing the passage of time between sentences. Maybe one day a forum will come up with a clever way to display that.
 
Picture of the largest epiplatys annulatus I received (the smallest is the thickness of a safety pin (really small); this one is only marginally larger - however all 8 of them have one thing in common and that is BLUE EYES !!!! Picture doesn't really show it but those eyes are really striking:

clown.jpg


And yea i'm feeding them all bbs right now due to their size.
 
Picture of the largest epiplatys annulatus I received (the smallest is the thickness of a safety pin (really small); this one is only marginally larger - however all 8 of them have one thing in common and that is BLUE EYES !!!! Picture doesn't really show it but those eyes are really striking:

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And yea i'm feeding them all bbs right now due to their size.
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Clown killies are such attractive little fish.
 
Picked this guy up this past Sunday and have hardly been able to pry myself away from his tank since!
 

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Picked this guy up this past Sunday and have hardly been able to pry myself away from his tank since!
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Did it come with a species name? Looks like a Dario though I’m unsure of which one.
 
Did it come with a species name? Looks like a Dario though I’m unsure of which one.
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Scarlet badis, Dario dario. Not the best pic, but hes a shy little fella. Have had my eye on them since returning to the hobby last year, but wasn't ready to take on live foods then.

Now with a 15 month old tank that will not support shrimp, and that is full of little critters I couldn't think of a more perfect time or place!
 
Scarlet badis, Dario dario. Not the best pic, but hes a shy little fella. Have had my eye on them since returning to the hobby last year, but wasn't ready to take on live foods then.

Now with a 15 month old tank that will not support shrimp, and that is full of little critters I couldn't think of a more perfect time or place!
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I thought D.dario but I couldn’t see any blue markings which the males always have. Maybe it’s a female?
 

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I thought D.dario but I couldn’t see any blue markings which the males always have. Maybe it’s a female?
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I had to go stare a minute, lol. Learning alot today. Previous just thought males were super red / orange, and females nearly colorless.

I can tell there is definitely a blue stripe at the front of his pelvic fin. Easily observed when he's got them extended. Where else should there be blue? His silvery stripes have a blue shine to them, kinda platinum like.

Then there's the fact that anytime he sees his tank mate (bought the last 2 in hopes of a pair) he chases it until its out of site.

Now their home I can tell the 2nd has some color coming in so kinda stuck on coming up with somewhere quick to place him. I believe there's plenty hides to stay safe until then.
 
I had to go stare a minute, lol. Learning alot today. Previous just thought males were super red / orange, and females nearly colorless.

I can tell there is definitely a blue stripe at the front of his pelvic fin. Easily observed when he's got them extended. Where else should there be blue? His silvery stripes have a blue shine to them, kinda platinum like.

Then there's the fact that anytime he sees his tank mate (bought the last 2 in hopes of a pair) he chases it until its out of site.

Now their home I can tell the 2nd has some color coming in so kinda stuck on coming up with somewhere quick to place him. I believe there's plenty hides to stay safe until then.
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Up here, females are virtually impossible to find. But subordinate males can be quite a bit less colourful than the more dominant ones and they do not share territory.

My icon image is a mature male D.dario. Here’s a bigger version of it.

I had a true pair and this is the male from that pair, but unfortunately lost the female before they got around to spawning. I would give a lot to find a pair of them again. She was a pretty plain silver & even smaller than he was.
 

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Up here, females are virtually impossible to find. But subordinate males can be quite a bit less colourful than the more dominant ones and they do not share territory.

My icon image is a mature male D.dario. Here’s a bigger version of it.

I had a true pair and this is the male from that pair, but unfortunately lost the female before they got around to spawning. I would give a lot to find a pair of them again. She was a pretty plain silver & even smaller than he was.

View attachment 911470
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Fyi: wetspot in oregon sells them so if you live on the west side you could perhaps drive across the border and snag a pair ;)
 
Fyi: wetspot in oregon sells them so if you live on the west side you could perhaps drive across the border and snag a pair ;)
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Sadly, I’m in Ontario - it would be one heck of a drive :-)!

But it’s nice to know - if I end up visiting my nieces in Vancouver one day, might be possible.
 
I picked up some long fin White Clouds on AquaBid. They are scheduled to be delivered today! They look a bit fancier than I remember from my childhood Lol ;)
 
So yesterday i received a package - i wont list everything but 3 primary fishes were:
a pair of dario dario - they were very very small not much larger than small. both were colourless but they are sold as a pair - i actually wanted a trio but they said they get so few females they coudlnt' do it today.
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10 zebra loaches - a month ago i had ordered 3 to add to my school of ~15 in my large aquarium but they were so adorable (usually i get adults but these are like 2 inches); i decided to add 10 to my bedroom aquarium which is a 180 (72 inches long 30 inches wide). So they get thrown into the mix of orange laser (aenus) cory and keyholes. Hum. I do have a few pygmy i see now and then but not often and 20 cherry barbs. Not much for the very top.
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And last but least i purchased a *lot* of my favorite dither fish. I had been looking for these guys for 4 months so i just had to get a bunch - 40 to be precise; when they are this size the colour doesn't really shine and to be honest when they are larger they only have a little more colour but they are just adorable little guys. I've tried something like 20 species of nannostomus from the obnoxious super expensive red ones to the super cheap 1 and 3 lines and of all 20 species that i tried this is by far my favorite. It is fine if no one else in the whole wide world likes them because for me they are very special. Actually i overstated it - i only tried around 10 or 11 species - so there are a lot of other species i haven't tried. One i want to try is n. espei but i've never seen them for sale. That will be my next project - expect another posting in a couple of years !

nm.jpg
 
So yesterday i received a package - i wont list everything but 3 primary fishes were:
a pair of dario dario - they were very very small not much larger than small. both were colourless but they are sold as a pair - i actually wanted a trio but they said they get so few females they coudlnt' do it today.
-
10 zebra loaches - a month ago i had ordered 3 to add to my school of ~15 in my large aquarium but they were so adorable (usually i get adults but these are like 2 inches); i decided to add 10 to my bedroom aquarium which is a 180 (72 inches long 30 inches wide). So they get thrown into the mix of orange laser (aenus) cory and keyholes. Hum. I do have a few pygmy i see now and then but not often and 20 cherry barbs. Not much for the very top.
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And last but least i purchased a *lot* of my favorite dither fish. I had been looking for these guys for 4 months so i just had to get a bunch - 40 to be precise; when they are this size the colour doesn't really shine and to be honest when they are larger they only have a little more colour but they are just adorable little guys. I've tried something like 20 species of nannostomus from the obnoxious super expensive red ones to the super cheap 1 and 3 lines and of all 20 species that i tried this is by far my favorite. It is fine if no one else in the whole wide world likes them because for me they are very special. Actually i overstated it - i only tried around 10 or 11 species - so there are a lot of other species i haven't tried. One i want to try is n. espei but i've never seen them for sale. That will be my next project - expect another posting in a couple of years !

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Which pencilfish are they?
 
Would really like to find some solid black endlers or guppies. Not sure that they even exist. If anyone has any info on these guys please share. Thanks,Tim.
 
Up here, females are virtually impossible to find. But subordinate males can be quite a bit less colourful than the more dominant ones and they do not share territory.

My icon image is a mature male D.dario. Here’s a bigger version of it.

I had a true pair and this is the male from that pair, but unfortunately lost the female before they got around to spawning. I would give a lot to find a pair of them again. She was a pretty plain silver & even smaller than he was.
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Good looking fish. The bigger of the two I've got looks quite identical, but is nearly impossible to get a good pic. I'm very much hoping I've got a m/f. The second fish isn't near as colorful as the first fish and just over half its size. The smaller follows the larger around alot of the time, I've seen zero aggression from either. Fingers crossed!
 

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Would really like to find some solid black endlers or guppies. Not sure that they even exist. If anyone has any info on these guys please share. Thanks,Tim.
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All black guppies exist - but I don’t think black Endlers do unless possibly as hybrids. But I’ve not seen any - maybe emeraldking would know.
 
All black guppies exist - but I don’t think black Endlers do unless possibly as hybrids. But Uve not seen any - maybe emeraldking would know.
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Guppies would be fine. I'll have to find some new suppliers as the ones I usually shop never have any listed. I was hoping emeradking would eventually chime in.
 
I'm getting some hara jerdoni (Asian Stone Catfish). They are about 1.5 inches long, burrow in sand and change color slightly. They'll live with my group of scarlet badis - I'm making a biotope of the Brahmaputra River in India.

I didn't get them for a long time because I didn't want them to interfere with the scarlet badis breeding, but the badis breed incessantly, so it's not a concern.
 
I'm getting some hara jerdoni (Asian Stone Catfish). They are about 1.5 inches long, burrow in sand and change color slightly. They'll live with my group of scarlet badis - I'm making a biotope of the Brahmaputra River in India.

I didn't get them for a long time because I didn't want them to interfere with the scarlet badis breeding, but the badis breed incessantly, so it's not a concern.
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I thot of those but don't think I'd ever see them.
 
I'm getting some hara jerdoni (Asian Stone Catfish). They are about 1.5 inches long, burrow in sand and change color slightly. They'll live with my group of scarlet badis - I'm making a biotope of the Brahmaputra River in India.

I didn't get them for a long time because I didn't want them to interfere with the scarlet badis breeding, but the badis breed incessantly, so it's not a concern.
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They’re neat little fish - post some pics!
 
I have a weakness for German Blue Rams. Love everything about them and was SO tempted to pick this guy up today at the LFS. Don't have a great spot for him. But I may just need to figure something out. 20241116_163621.jpg
 
Wetspot has Erethistes jerdoni for $7 each - of course shipping will be a bit unless there is more you want.
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I mean I would never see them in my heavily planted dimly lit tank.
 
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