Another of my halfbeaks died today, and now its the dominant female!!!
If there was any of them going to go i least expected it to be her! Shes showed no signs of stress, and was eating fine yeaterday, but on the floor being inspected from a distance by the half banded eel...
The other males and the female are fine though, and dont seem strange in any way, but i dont know whats happening...
Any ideas?
Also, with two males, and only one female, will i have any problems? Should i try and get some more?

Thanks alot, Mikey

what kind of healfbeaks are they?

They are celebes...
Just dont understand. The other that died, i could see stress, but this one, nothing...

Mikey

Halfbeaks will die for no obvious reason. Obviously, there is a reason, but we just aren't cognisant of it. I'd narrow it down to...

1. Water chemistry. A lot of these species come from soft/acid. Hard/alkaline favours bacterial growth, and they might not be able to cope.
2. Diet. These apparently eat a lot of vegetarian foods, such as pollen. They also seem to eat a lot. Getting the calories in them, while keeping the right balance of meat vs. plants might be tricky.
3. Social behaviour. Big groups seem more stable than twos and threes. Possibly, like glass catfish and Corydoras, if you don't have enough, they just aren't "happy".

It's really a question of trying different things until you get a stable colony. That's the best way to keep these fish, so that baby fish can replace any adults.

Cheers,

Neale

Ok, thanks for the info. She defineatly ate enough, but maybe it wasnt of the right types...Ill have to try some other things.
My waters fine, so i doubt it would be that, and she was the dominant one in the group, so i dont think it would have been that either

Thanks, Mikey

pollen?? Well, you can go to some ethnic markets and get some dried chrysanthemum flowers for really cheap. Maybe you can try that?

If not, maybe you can buy/plant/pick some flowers and put them into your tank.

If you can put hygrophilla (aquarium plant) into your tank, those will flower easily too.

My halfbeaks didn't really start to thrive until I softened my water quite a bit. My water is naturally hard with a slightly high pH (usually around 8 ). For my other livebearerers it was great but I got some black water extract for some south american fish and used it for my Celebes Half Beaks as well and as soon as I added it they both colored up and became more active.

This post has been edited by guppymonkey: Dec 22 2006, 02:15 AM

When I kept halfbeaks something I was very wary of as well was dramatic change in temperature. I think you had some trouble with that at one time yourself?

I'd turn the lights off on the tank an hour early, and if you can, check teh temperature halfway through the night (or before your heating omes on) and see the temperature in the tank.