Dwarf Pencilfish

[littlest]

Well I did a bad thing. I bought some fish without knowing a great deal about them. I bought 4 dwarf pencilfish for my 30L tank (which also houses three amano shrimp). I've researched a bit (and looked on the fish profile on here) but not found a great deal of info on them, for example, minimum tank size. Will the be OK in the 30L?
One thing I did find out was they prefer slightly acidic water but my pH is 8. Should I add some peat and/or blackwater extract? Would this help?

Also, is four an OK number? I would prefer to increase it to around 6 if space and bio-load allow.

also, would the pencilfish be OK if I got a single honey gourami in the same tank? Would there be compatitabily issues or stocking issues in this? I read that pencilfish are shy and can be imtiminated by larger fish, but a honey gourami is still quite small, but then space is limited, so if they didn't like the gourami they would have a hard time getting away from it.

Anyway, apart from all that, the dwarf pencilfish seem to be settling in well. Didn't see them much yesterday, but today they are swimming around a lot and exploring their new home. I saw their nocturnal markings last night too. Pretty cool - very different to daytime.

 

[littlest]

anyone got any info on the pencilfish? or any thoughts on whether they would be OK with a honey gourami?

 

[Essjay]

In the past, I had dwarf pencilfish with honey gouramis with no problem. My tapwater is pH 6.9 so I don't know how they would be with pH8. Remeber that they have very small mouths, so they need small bits of food - I used to crunch up the flake before feeding them. I had 6 in a 60 litre tank, not sure about minimum tank size. They grew to about 1 1/2 inches long, so 4 of them plus a honey gourami makes 8 inches in total, and you have an 8 gallon tank. Sounds OK, but someone else may know better!

 

[littlest]

thanks essjay. I have been crushing up the flakes when I feed them. They are eating well and seem pretty active, so far so good.