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I know it sounds weird, freshwater horses, I saw some in an LFS not too long ago. The keeper swore that they were freshwater inhabitants. I did some research and found that they are locally called pez pipa or pipe fish. They would live in brackish water and some smaller species would live in freshwater. The book I got the info from is a little outdated and the info was very scarce so I was wondering if anyone had any knowledge if this gender of fish had a species that lived exclusively on freshwater?

Bibliography: Peces de las aguas continentales de Costa Rica by William A. Bussing

I think I do have some info in a magazine back home. I'll check it out tonight after work.

This the beast in question by any chance?

Enneacmpus ansorgii, the Freshwater Pipefish from Africa. Some details can be found here.

It may well live in fresh water as a juvenile, but I would hazard a guess that it would prefer brackish water as it became adult. It's also likely to be very difficult to keep alive, not only because it will be fastidious with respect to water quality, but because it will NEED live foods, and furthermore live foods that are small enough for it to eat. Additionally, the foods in question will almost certainly HAVE to contain their fair share of hard shelled crustaceans (amphipods and the like) because without them, it will suffer calcium deficiency and the bony plates that it should develop as armour will not grow properly. So to keep this fish, you are almost certainly looking at a species aquarium, one with at least mildly brackish water at some point in the future (specific gravity 1.008 or thereabouts), with additional minerals in the water (the harder the tap water the better), and a constant supply of cultivated amphipods supplied to it to feed upon - Gammarus and Crangonyx freshwater amphipods being the species of choice, and these too cultivated in very hard water so that they develop nice calcareous shells. Hard shelled crustaceans are a MUST for cultivating members of the Family Sygnathidae (Sea Horses, Pipefishes and allies) in marine aquaria, so I would suspect the same holds true for this fish.

There are some other species in circulation that are fresh/brackish water inhabitants, but this one is apparently the best known. Not that these oddballs are anything LIKE well known in the hobby, and are generally the preserve of a few dedicated specialist.

In short, if you can't provide it with VERY specialised conditions in the aquarium, don't take it on. It will be demanding, a test of your fishkeeping skills, and troublesome unless you have a LOT of expoerience with other fastidious fishes.



Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

http://www.wetwebmedia.com/BrackishSubWebIndex/bracpipefishes.htm

Wouldnt you know it I searched though my magazines and couldnt find it. I swore there was a northern australian brackish/fresh water pipefish but it is not so.

Anyway, above is another link to the African pipefish.

Thank you both for your info and links, very informative as always.

This is an amazing animal! Although somewhat out of reach from my current limited experience, I'd like to gain the knowledge to tend for such delicate fish in the future. But for now stick with the great species I currently house and maybe do some in situ research on the habitat where these specimen inhabits in order to get to know its characteristics.

Cultivated amphipods huh? Sounds like a great type of livefood for general fish keeping also...I'll have to look into that!

Thank you so much for your replies.

All the best,

James

Freshwater amphipods should be relatively easy to cultivate for use as fish food with a variety of fishes. However, one factor to bear in mind is that the species available here in the UK from our native waters - namely the assorted members of the Genus Gammarus and the introduced but naturalised Crangonyx pseudogracilis - require good oxygenation levels in their water. So you have to set up an aquarium with decent aeration for them.

However, once that is in place, they'll munch happily on regular flake foods (though of course needing smaller amounts than fishes) and Crangonyx pseudogracilis has its uses as a feeder upon blanket weed in ponds. However, it will only perform that function efficiently if it isn't being harvested wholesale by large, hungry fishes!

Crangonyx is actually a North American native, and chances are there may well be relations living natively in Costa Rica that are similarly amenable to cultivation. Check out both Genera, namely Gammarus and Crangonyx, and see if there are any species recorded in Costa Rican waters that you can track down, as these will be more amenable to cultivation at tropical temperatures and more likely to survive the slightly lower oxygen content of warmer waters. However, before launching wholesale into their cultivation as fish food, ensure that any wild caught ones aren't carrying some unwelcome hitch hikers with them. With invertebrates like these, it's always wise to check that they're not host to something unpleasant, such as a digenetic trematode that also parasitises fishes, though to track down both the species extant in Costa Rican waters AND their likely parasite loading for a safety evaluation, chances are you'll have to resort to Google Scholar and have to wade through a mass of learned papers on the subject.

One quick way of finding likely cnadidates for cultivation would be to do a Google search on the following search term:

"checklist of invertebrates of Costa Rica"

The keyword "checklist" appears in a lot of the scientific literature, and may throw up some interesting and useful critters for cultivation that I haven't covered here. Basically, if it's a hard shelled amphipod, and has an adult size no greater than, say, 20 mm total length, you could be on to a winner, provided of course that it isn't a host to some nasty disease of fishes. The ones to watch for with particular care are microsporidian diseases - Neon Tetra Disease is one of these, and microsporidians are your worst nightmare come true in an aquarium if they take a hold. Eliminate these as a risk, and you're halfway to finding yourself some interesting critters that are worth cultivating in their own right as well as for feeding your fishes.

By the way, hard shelled amphipods make good growth food for baby Cichlids.


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

Thank you Calilasseia for your very informative post.


I did some research and found that we have species of the Macrobraquium genra here in CR. I was not able to find great info on reproduction in captivity. Does anyone have an idea of specifics like: Substrate, water quality and conditions(Ph, GH, temperature, etc.), structure (rocks, plants, driftwood, etc.), as well as tips and suggestions for breeding these freshwater inverts. I would greatly appreciatte all and any info provided.

Much obliged,

James