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Micoctenopoma surprise

GaryE

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I wanted to get a photo of a Microctenopoma congicum bubble nest. So I put a pair in a 10 gallon. I cut a piece of driftwood so it fit snugly across the tank at the surface, front to back. This created a flatwater zone, and the male obliged by building a lovely nest in there last week. I got my photos, but I could see no signs of the male guarding, and the nest gradually broke up.

This morning, I spotted an unexpected movement, and realized I had at least 50 tiny silver fry out in the brightest part of the tank. I grabbed some powdered krill fines, and I guess I'm raising African anabantoids again.

It's a beautiful fish, but if I raise all 50, I have no clue what I can do with them. The fish is very tough, but it gets along fine with equally sized tankmates. They don't get pushed around, and can beat up Cichlids, but they don't care to. If another fish starts a fight, they'll learn something.

I won't count my chickens yet, but I should be able to raise another generation of a cool and very hard to find fish. Just like that. Accidents of the good variety happen in single species tanks.
 
These fish seem very interesting and mysterious to me. So they’re related to gouramis/bettas but live in Africa?
 
They are bubble nesting Anabantoids, usually called "bush fish". There are some big ones, including the semi-popular Leopard Bush Fish (Ctenopoma acutirostre). These are one of the micro version, in effect the dwarf bush fish. The most popular one is M. ansorgii, a real beauty, but I like blue and black fish, so this one also looks good to me.

Their distribution tells us a very ancient story.

In the modern story, there are way more than I first thought - at least 100 miniscule fry.
 

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