Tag Archives: pencilfish

Nannostomus harrisoni

19. March 2018

The Blackstripe pencilfish has been described from Guyana scientifically back in 1909. Here he fish inhabits exclusively the Demerara river basin. The beautiful species attains a maximum length of 4.5 cm and is very peaceful. Formerly the fish was placed in a separate genus, namely Poecilobrycon, due to the long snout. In the meantime the genus Poecilobrycon is considered to be a synonym of Nannostomus. Males differ from the females by the shape of the anal fin. Moreover this fin has a high degree of red coloration in males which is lacking in females.

There is a certain similarity between Nannostomus unifasciatus and N. harrisoni; in contrast to N. unifasciatus N. harrisoni does not swim in a head-up position as N. unifasciatus regulary does. So a confusion of living fish should be excluded.

After many years we can offer now this beauty again. The fish are wild collected ones from Guyana.

For our customers: the animal has code 272004 on our stocklist. Please note that we exclusively supply the wholesale trade.

Text & photos: Frank Schäfer

Nannostomus trifasciatus „Gold“

15. September 2017

Only very rarely we obtain assorted „goldtetras“ in numbers. An exception of that rule is, however, „the“ gold tetra, Hyphessobrycon saizi (usually traded under the wrong name H. eos). But basically every tetra can become a golden one – they are only hard to find.

We now received from Peru large, fully mature golden Nannostomus trifasciatus. The golden colour is a reaction of the skin, caused by an overcomed infection with a parasite; so the strongness of the golden shine differs individually and the offspring of golden fish look absolutely normal – no gold at all. Golden tetras have no disadvantage against normal coloured conspecifics in an aquarium.

In the wild this is totally different. The parasite that causes the golden shine must find its way in the intestines of a fish-eating bird to develop and to reproduce. Until a golden tetra is eaten by a bird the parasite stays in an inactive state. The chance that such a golden fish is preyed on is much bigger than for a normal coloured fish, which is camouflaged when looked at from top. So the golden animals are under a much higher pressure to be prayed on than normal ones and this is most probably the reason why ornamental fish collectors usually cannot find them in numbers.

For our customers: the fish have code 272315 on our stocklist.Please note that we exclusively supply the wholesale trade.

Text & photos: Frank Schäfer