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hello everyone,

happy new year! have just been pondering the declining breeding behaviour of my beckford's pencilfish (aside from the move from sydney to melbourne, where the core water parameters are quite different)in the last little while, and was wondering if there were any ideas on the preferred gender ratios? i have lost 3 females over these last couple of months, and they are now rearely breeding. i currently have 6 males and 4 females... lots of jousting between the fellas, but no ensuing breeding. i know plenty of species have a high male:female ratio, but have never thought about it for pencilfish. any thoughts?

I think it's best when you have more females than male pencilfish. Seems like the male pencils spend a lot of time battling for supremacy when there are a lot of them, whereas when there are more ladies to impress they spend a bit more time with that.

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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."

I would watch your Beckford's Pencils like a hawk.

The ones I obtained may have been an errant batch, but just in case they weren't, here are some observations I made.

One. If possible, I'd make sure your females outnumber your males by at least 3 to 1. Anything less and they're likely to be picked off one by one by the males. I had a 1:1 gender ratio and my males systematically killed off all the females one by one before turning their attentions to each other.

Two. Once there were no females left, the aggression increased. Eventually, I was left with two uber-macho berserkers occupying each end of the tank, engaging in sabre rattling and assorted other shenanigans. I ended up calling them Stalin and Hitler.

Basically, these fishes are NOT something I'd recommend for anything less than a 4ft aquarium. In smaller quarters they end up behaving like Mbuna, and hardcore criminal ones at that - think along the lines of Pseudotropheus elongatus and other aquarium terrorists. Either put them in an aquarium that's long and has plenty of swimming space (and plant thickets so that the lower ones in the pecking order have somewhere to hide from the bullies) or put them in with something big and intimidating like a Blue Gourami that forces them to shoal. Believe me, I've seen Convict Cichlids with a beter command of social decorum!

Once sexual maturity kicks in, these things can become little demons. They're the Neetroplus nematopus of small characins - not only do they develop fulminating, volcanic bad tempered when the testosterone is in full flow, but they practice the 'search and destroy' method of eliminating opponents.

As I said, i may have acquired a particularly errant bunch of psychopaths, but I'm not going to risk acquiring them again until I have at least a 4ft aquarium to house them in, and preferably a 6ft one. If that sounds ridiculous for small characins, then believe me, mine were complete headcases, candidates for being Sectioned under the Mental Health Act - in particular the part that deals with the criminally insane.


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

I have four pencilfish - 2 male and 2 female. Luckily, I haven't found mine to be quite as bad, but I did have to take them out of my community tank. The two males were very, very, very active and chased each other and the females around the tank on a fairly regular basis. They intimidated the other fish in the tank with thier activity, but never seemed to hurt anyone.

So, I moved them into my 10 gal shrimp tank, and they seem quite happy in there. They are still very active, but the shrimp don't care.

I was suprised that the setup worked - I thought the pencilfish would have needed more space, too, but it works.

I have 5 of these guys in my 72, two of them are extremely dark and have alot of fin color and put on quite a display as they go vertical side by side in the water column.

This is my first experience with the fish and I've had them for 3 months now without any major problems, although one very dominant male is starting to chase all the fish around the tank.

I haven't seen any breeding activity yet from the group.

My Scapes

Watch that extra dark dominant one. And be prepared to act FAST if he starts developing Stalin-esque megalomaniac tendencies. Which is possible with these fishes. Don't be afraid to be ruthless with them, because if you're not, they'll cause mayhem.

I had one that became extra dark and dominant. It then beat up the number two male on a fairly regular basis, which then took out its frustration on the females and the number 3 male. I ended up with these two carving up the aquarium between them and announcing their avowed intention to start World War III with each other. The really dark one took possession of the bogwood arch, while the lighter one took the bogwood boot as its territory. They'd glower at each other across the water and intermtittently engage in combat. Small wonder I ended up calling them Hitler and Stalin


Last edited by Calilasseia at 02-Jan-2006 19:45

Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

Too funny
(Sorry, I guess I shouldn't laugh at abusive fish behaviour)

I can laugh now, because on reflection there is a funny side to it, but needless to say I wasn't laughing too much when plucking dead females out of the tank ...

I am hoping that I did obtain a rogue batch of wacko sociopaths that were brought up in some chemical warfare lab and force-fed phencyclidine during their fry stage, because if they all turn out like this, then until I obtain a 4ft aquarium and can plan the décor to provide bomb shelters for the rest of the fish, I'm stuffed with respect to future purchases of Beckford's Pencils ...


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

Actually, it was your description of the little "communist/ nazis" glowering across the tank at each other that was making me laugh. I wouldn't be laughing at all if it happened in my tank, though.

And, it's quite possible that if I had left the pencilfish in that community tank, I would have been dealing with the same problems. Now that I think about it, it looks like I got them out just in time...




Last edited by misty7 at 02-Jan-2006 21:16

Heh, I know how to spice up my posts

Mind you, I'm tempted to ask what would happen if, experimentally, I put them in a species aquarium ... perhaps they just hate being with other fish ...


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

mine show no interest in any other fish in the tank, even during feeding time. the males are heads-down a lot of the time,displaying, very in their deep blood-red stripes. i'll up the number by a dozen females and see what happens. thanks for the heads-up, calli, have had this batch for over a year now and have no troubles at all - i think you did have an aberrant bunch!

Last edited by jase101 at 03-Jan-2006 02:25