Halfbeak diary...

[nmonks]

Hello,

I've uploaded some new pictures of the baby halfbeaks for those who're interested, along with some notes on keeping these fish.

http/homepage.mac.com/nmonks/aquaria/halfbeaks.html

As mentioned on this page, I did manage to lose three of the young pups. An Ancistrus had managed to scrape a hole in the netting of the breeding trap. I suppose to get at all the live food in there (bloodworms and so on). Several halfbeak babies swam out of the hole. By the time I noticed what was going on and recovered the escaped babies, several seem to have been eaten, presumably by the adult halfbeaks.

The remaining babies are now in their own tank, with a bubble-up box filter and some floating plants. Seem to be doing fine, but showing no interest in most dead foods or flake.

Cheers,

Neale

 

[aloaring]

Wow Neale
Thats a really informative website you've got there, if i had the room i would love to get some of those half beaks, they are such unusual looking fish!!
good luck with the remaining babies!!

 

[nmonks]

Thanks for the kind comments!

The good news is I miscounted -- I've only lost one baby halfbeak, and managed to rescue more of them than I thought.

There's really so little published about these fish that I figured writing down what I did and what happened would be useful to others. They really are neat fish -- they're not picky about pH or hardness, they're big enough to look cool but small enough to fit into a small tank. I've no idea why they're so rarely traded.

Cheers,

Neale

PS. I've actually just uploaded a few more pics:

 

[Elisabeth83]

Awww how cute Neale They look like they have grown and look chubbier than the fist pics you put on. You must he doing a great job on taking care of them

 

[nmonks]

Hi there --

Couldn't resist posting this cool picture. They're really starting to look like little halfbeaks.

Cheers,

Neale