Copella Nattereri

[Essjay]

I just bought some dwarf pencilfish (Nannostomus marginatus) and I have found that one of them is not a pencilfish. It is about the same length, but has 4 or 5 rows of dots down its body and a dark spot on its dorsal fin. The nearest match I can find is Copella natterei. All I can find is that they are shoaling and grow between 4.5 to 8 cm long, depending where you look. I did find one reference saying they are found as contaminants in with dwarf pencilfish, otherwise they are pretty rare.
Does anyone know any more about them?

I'm not concerned about losing a pencilfish - the guy knew nothing about them (I had to tell him which ones they were), and I asked for 6 but there were 9 in the bag, plus the *contaminant*!!

 

[Lateral Line]

Lucky you, nice fish. My books say pretty much similar to what your research has unearthed, peaceful, shoaling fish 50-60mm behaviouraly similar to other small pencil fish. I've always found pencils to be a little difficult to settle, they also have small mouths and can be finicky feeders. Naturally, they are on the carnivorous side of omnivore so some small animal food, brine shrimp perhaps, will be appreciated.

I have a soft spot for "contaminants" and used to avidly collect them!

 

[Essjay]

Thanks for that info. I found plenty on the marginatus pencilfish but hardly anything on the copella. I am very partial to pencilfish - my previous shoal of marginatus all died close together, but they were nearly four years old which I understand is a good age for these fish.