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Fill me in.

Peat substrate?
Males, 1 per tank? how do you sex them?
Can they be kept in a harem or is it pairs?
require a heater?

For animals, the entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks. - Terry Pratchett

yep those males'll fight unless theres a large enough group. The males are the ones with the color. The girls look about the color of a rock. The more girls the better, they can get a bit agressive with their ladies. No heater required unless the room is cold(airconditioned) or fluxtuates a lot.


you may find more info searching the term Fundulopanchax gardneri instead


[span class="edited"][Edited by castlequest 2004-08-13 02:47][/span]

I would not recommend more than two females with one male, I've always bred them in pairs with no trouble. Extra females have a tendency to follow the other two fish as they are breeding and eat eggs as they are laid. With a trio you should still be alright if you feed well, but bear in mind that gardneri are pigs.

Peat isn't necessary, lots of spawning mops (sinkers and floaters) will keep the female(s) safe and give them somewhere to place the eggs. Eggs can be wet hatched in about 14-21 days depending on temperature, or stored on peat and hatched after 3-4 weeks so that all the fry are uniform in size and age. Fry are not aggressively cannibalistic, however, so I just wet hatch. Fry are fairly small, but will readily accept live brine shrimp nauplii or microworms.

I've also kept a pair in a 5.5 gallon tank with a large mass of Java Moss (over half the volume of the tank), and just let the fry grow up with the parents. This requires regular daily feedings of live or frozen foods for the adults, and doesn't result in a lot of young, but it is a lazy way to maintain a species.

i like the option of being a bit lazy

thankyou both for the info.. now i gotta try and track some down. Typical that i decide to go for this just as NAKA closes down! *grumble*

THANKYOU!

For animals, the entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks. - Terry Pratchett