Breeding Dwarf Rainbowfish (Melanotaenia Praecox) In The Aquarium

Location

This freshwater fish lives in Mamberano River in New Guinea and Indonesia. It lives in fast-flowing tributaries of the river and lowland wetlands covered jungle. This is endangered species.

Body description

Colour of the fish depends on its habitat. Colour of the basic variant of this fish is gray-pinkish with blue-neon shine. Almost all fins, except the pectoral fins, have red borders. Body of the fish is fusiform with clearly visible notch between the head and the trunk of the fish. This notch becomes bigger with age. The fish has long anal fin, two dorsal fins, big eyes and mouth but it has narrow throat so you need to feed these fish with very fine food. You can recognize the sex of the fish when it is sexually matured. Female's fins have red, orange or yellow borders. Male is a bit larger and more colourful. His fins have red borders even if hey are young.

Temperament and behaviour

This is a shoal species. Fish prefers to live in a group of 8 minimum and there should be more females than males or at least the same amount of each sex. Males tend to torment females during the spawning season. The fish are less timid and shy in a group and males show their best colours when they compete for the females attention. This is an active, peaceful, inquisitive fish which likes to be on the move. It swims very fast from one end of the aquarium to the second end. This species is very intelligent. It seems to be conscious about what is happening outside of the aquarium. It carefully watches what is happening outside and it reacts to everyday activities of the person who takes care for them. This species will try to get food which is intended for other fish, even if it isn't able to swallow. It hides this food (e.g. a tablet) in previously selected place and it waits until this food will dissolve into smaller parts. You shouldn't overfeed these fish – they may get ill by getting the intestinal disease. You should feed them 2-3 times per day with the amount of food that the fish can eat within 5 minutes. The food should be various.

Aquarium decoration

This species prefers a spacious tank. Aquarium should have space to swim, a lot of plants, floating plants, dimmed light, hiding-places among roots, branches, an effective filtration system with medium water flow, sandy substrate. The fish needs clean water so you should systematically do a partial water changes and you should systematically clean the substrate from remaining food and other waste. You must cover the aquarium because the fish may jump out of it. This species is sensitive to sudden changes of water parameters. You should keep these fish with similar size species e.g. danios, dwarf cichlids, corydoras, botias, tetras, barbs. You shouldn't keep them with other rainbowfish because they will mate with each other creating hybrids.

Breeding

This is an oviparous species. Breeding of these fish is an easy task when they are matured sexually. You should breed this fish in a separate tank. Breeding aquarium should have slightly hard water with pH=7 and 24-26°C water temperature, fine-leaved plants (e.g. java moss) and hiding-places for female. You should feed the fish with plenty of live food in the general aquarium before spawning. You may also separate males from females. Pair of the fish (the thickest female and the most colourful male) should be transferred to the breeding tank. The fish spawn for a few days. Female lays portion of eggs on the leaves of plants every day but the most eggs get deposited on the first and the last day. The parents can eat the eggs and fry so you must remove them after spawning. The eggs hatch after 7-10 days and you must feed the offspring immediately with ciliate. When the fry will get bigger you may feed it with artemia, micro worms or liquid food for fry. The fry grows slowly.