Tag Archives: australis

Melanotaenia australis

2. August 2017

One of the species of rainbowfishes with the longest aqurium history is the dwarf rainbowfish, Melanotaenia maccullochi. It reached Europe as early as 1934 and is kept and bred since then. However, if we order nowadays M. maccullochi from Indonesia we do not get this species, but another one which has only a rough similarity with M. maccullochi: M. australis. M. australis has been considered to be a subspecies of M. splendida for a long time. It is distributed in northern Australia. The variety with the pretty red fins that is spread in the hobby currently looks most similar to the form from the Sale River in the Kimberly region, state of Western Austalia. We can offer this species both as imports from Indonesia (bred fish) as well as German bred ones. It attains a maximum length of about 11 cm.

For our customers: the fish have code 427104 and 427123 (selective bred „Super Red“) on our stocklist. Please note that we exclusively supply the wholesale trade.

Chaetobranchopsis australis

8. March 2017

Here it is: the cichlid with the probably most interesting mode of feeding from Paraguay! Chaetobranchopsis australis is specialized in feeding small planktic organisms. The up to 12-14 cm long fish swallows water like a vacuum cleaner and sieves the plankton with long gill rakers out of it. Obviously at the time of our importation – last september – the plankton in Paraguay is rather rare, for the fish are more skinny than we like it; but we are sure this has become corrected in the meantime in the fishhouses of our customers.

Chaetobranchopsis belongs to the very few species of cichlid in which the breeding behaviour is absolutely unknown. Aquarium fish have been observed in cleaning stones, so they might be open brooders, but no one knows!

For our customers: the animals have code 634904 on our stocklist. Please note that we exclusively supply the wholesale trade.

Text & photos: Frank Schäfer