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Does this have a common/latin name?

Saw some in the lfs for a reasonable price, but they seemed to have a practically invisible dorsal? :/

The common name is probably "platinum tetra", and I believe the scientific name for these little critters is "Hemigrammus Vordorwinkleri". From the few pictures I've seen on the Internet, they do indeed seem to have an invisible dorsal fin.
I believe that platinum tetras are pretty tough to find for sale, so if you like them, buy them as soon as you can.

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And when he gets to Heaven, to Saint Peter he will tell: "One more Marine reporting, Sir! I've served my time in Hell."

Sirbooks slightly misspelled their name -- it's "Hemigrammus vorderwinkleri". There seems to be exactly one photo of these critters on the Web, at http://www.tropicalfishfinder.co.uk/news_article.asp?id=35 . Quite pretty in a quiet kind of way.

There were some at the lfs which is further to visit now we've moved house - but I've seen them before (in a display tank) and the guy said they rarely came in - they are very pretty, in a small sparkly silver fish kind of way! Seem identical to tetra's, except for their solid silver colouring, as irridescent as the neon's blue stripe. Might have to make the extra trip to pick half a dozen up!

x

Seems that the 'Platinum Tetra' is in fact the 'Gold Tetra' - Hemigrammus Rodwayi.

The fish we usually see as the Gold Tetra are all wild caught specimens. In the wild, this fish secretes a substance that protects itself against a parasite (guanin), giving it its golden colouring. This parasite cannot infest this fish in the home aquarium, as it requires an intermediate host for it to survive. Therefore the offspring cannot get the parasite, and do indeed look different from their parents, lacking the 'guanin'!

This fish seems to be also known as Hemigrammus Armstrongi.

It may not be the same fish. A lot of us are well acquainted with H. rodwayi and H. armstrongi (I also keep hearing contradictory stories about whether they're really the same species), and we also know about their being silver-colored without that strange skin disease. But I've never heard of them being called "Platinum Tetras"; and the Platinum Tetras in that photo (H. vorderwinkleri) look distinctly different.

Moreover, whenever I've seen non-gold "Gold Tetras", they've had a non-reflective but very clear turquoise stripe along their side, which the H. vorderwinkleri in the photo don't have.

Well, I'm not sure which pictures you are using as reference, but in the ones I see, the two fish H.Vorderwinkleri and H.Armstrongi look the same. And the fish I bought under the name 'Platinum Tetra' look the same as these fish. They also have the metallic green stripe down the lateral line.

Edit: the sole picture of H.Voderwinkleri also has this green line on the picture I found on Google.

Last edited by Malaikah at 21-Nov-2004 05:53