whooo hooo new fish

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ketyana

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I came home from the fish shop yesterday with the shoal of 6 pentazona barbs I had wanted for months :D they are so coool, I love them already, they are the same size as my neon tetras at the moment and they make the tank look so much more active!

Does anyone know much about these fish? I did alot of research on them, much of which mentions their excellent colouring and that they are good community fish unlike their lookly likey relatives the tiger barbs, but it also mentions that they are hard to get to take flake foods, which is fine plenty of brine shrimp here, but they ignored that this am and just waited for the flake food to float down to their area before they ate, if they are going to continue this I will have a fairly polluted tank before the month is out!!
 
Barbus pentazona is a lovely fish. There are actually 4 sub-species, B. pent. pentazona is the normal Pentazona. B. pent. partipentazona, has 1/2 a vertical band more, starting below the dorsal and crossing the upper half of the body. B. pent. hexazona has a complete extra band.

A fourth sub-species is B. pent. rhombocellatus. This is rare. I've only ever seen 1, at the Kempton Park show, in the early 1970's. This has the normal number of bands, but the bands are narrow at the top and bottom, widening in the middle of the body where they actually appear to split into two bands then merge again, giving the impression of a row of diamond shapes along the body. They are absolutely stunning.

All four of these were originally classed as seperate species but further work showed them to be regional variations of the same species.

Since they are all the same species, the care is the same. They prefer neutral to slightly acid water, ideally soft, 25C, but can be acclimated to most situations. Tigers don't like poor conditions, Pentazonas like it even less. For them to thrive, you've got to keep your water quality good.

They have a much milder temperament than tetrazona and inclined to be bullied rather than be the bullies.

I've always found them easy to feed. I've read the stories about not accepting flake etc., but the fish clearly have not.

Well conditioned, adult specimens breed readily, but to get any hatching, you do need soft water around 6.5pH. They are typical egg scatterers like most of the barbs. The fry are quite small and need small food at first, and like their parents, are fussy about water quality, but are not unduly difficult to raise in the right conditions.

Congratulations on your purchase - nice little fish.
 
:D nice fish seen a picture of them with plants sand kuhlis it looked great


im glad my favorite fish have finaly got a forum
 

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