FishProfiles.com Message Forums

Any body knows what a Bitterling Tetra is & it it's a cold water species?.

Thanks alot in advance.


http://www.flickr.com/photos/corydoras/
Member of the Malta Aquarist Society - 1970.
http://www.maltaaquarist.com

A bitterling tetra is a medium size tetra (10cm) that is coldwater (18-24C). It is peaceful and can live with other cold water fish. See the link below for more information.
~Morgan

http://www.adelaideaquariums.com.au/faqs/freshwater/fish/cyprinids/bitterling.html


~Morgan~

The Bitterling isn't a tetra... It's a cyprinid.

---

I'm not your neighbor, you Bakersfield trash.

Beat me to it Natalie.

However, no less a person that William T. Innes has contributed to the confusion over the years, because he placed the pages he wrote on the Bitterling (which he listed as Rhodeus sericeus) in the section of his book devoted to Characins (along with such diverse fishes as the Arowana and the Elephant Nosed Fish Gnathonemus petersi!!!).

Incidentally, among the anecdotes supplied by Innes about this fish is this one:

Another interesting fact was uncovered in the middle [19]30's : it was found that an inexpensive human pregnancy test could be performed with the aid of these fish. When the urine of a woman who suspected that she might be pregnant was put in with a pair of Bitterlings, and nothing happened, she was not a candidate for motherhood. But if the male turned rosy pink with his breeding colours and the female extruded her 2-inch long ovipositor tube, it was time to think about ordering birth announcements and begin shopping for infants' wear.

This relatively simple system sounded like the answer to a gynaecologist's prayer, but it had a tremendous flaw: it was not always infallible, and after many failures, it was discarded as untrustworthy.

Of course, Bitterlings are also known for their unique reproductive method, hence the female's outlindishly large (in relation to the small size of the fish) ovipositor - they lay their eggs inside the gill cavity of a freshwater mussel, and the male deposits his sperm where the mussel will ingest it and fertilise the eggs. Apparently it has since been discovered that the mussel gains from this use of its shell as a nursery, because the fry apparently feed upon internal parasites inhabiting the mussel before being released, and thus perform a cleaning function for the mussel! See this Fishbase entry for confirmation - the fry only leave the mussel when they are 28 days old!




Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

Thanks alot for your reply's. Yesterday i went to buy some Otos & saw them at the LFS. I never saw them before & their breeding method is very interesting.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/corydoras/
Member of the Malta Aquarist Society - 1970.
http://www.maltaaquarist.com