Nannostomus Marginatus

[SexyFishKeeper]

I bought six of Nannostomus Marginatus (Dwarf Pencilfish) after wanting to get pencilfish for a while.

Just wondered whats people's experiences with this fish as there doesn't seem to be much information about them on the web.

Photos of pencil fish...

Cheers

 

[ulster exile]

Are you sure they are Beckfordi? Look more like marginatus to me

Beckfordi (afaik) have only one clear black stripe...

(here's where I find out from somebody mroe knowledgable that mine aren't beckfordi either lol)

 

[SexyFishKeeper]

Doh!

I should really have tanken the name at the LFS.

They're Marginatus looking at the photos. Think a photo I used was mis-captioned

 

[Elrohirthehasty]

I bought six of Nannostomus Marginatus (Dwarf Pencilfish) after wanting to get pencilfish for a while.

Just wondered whats people's experiences with this fish as there doesn't seem to be much information about them on the web.

Photos of pencil fish...

Cheers

idk...
but i was thinkin of gettin me some of them

 

[tangokitty]

never had them, but they are strikingly beautiful!

 

[Loony Fish]

great fish, treat them like neons...

 

[Essjay]

I had some a few years ago. I found a website that gave life expectancies which said that N marginatus live about three years. Mine lived just short of four.

I thought they were lovely fish, they ate everything I put in the tank, both flake and frozen, though I did break the flakes up as they have such small mouths. Very peaceful, no aggression towards other species and only minor chases between themselves. I have read that they can be difficult to acclimatise, but mine had no problem. (Although I did buy some more after the first ones died of old age, from a shop I won't normally go near, and they died within a couple of days, taking a few tankmates with them - I suspect that was down to the source not bad acclimation!)

I haven't been able to find any since the 'bad' ones, so I've now got Beckford's pencilfish - a bit bigger, but just as well behaved. And, ulster exile, they look just like your photo!

 

[MartinS]

They look very similar to my trifasciatus!
Mine take dried (Tetra Prima) and frozen food (daphnia, bloodworm, black mosquito larva). There is lots of displaying going on all the time between the largest (I assume the dominant male) and some of the others. Colours are really lovely, with the red in the fins and silver edges to the fins.
Easy to keep, mine are in with rummynose tetras, several loricarids and some centromochlus perugiae and are the most active of them all.
Info from fishbase on both:
Nannostomus Trifasciatus
Nannostomus Marginatus
HTH
Martin