New Wrestling Halfbeaks

[GL-P]

Well, many of you have seen me posting a couple of questions around here. The halfbeaks finally came into the local shop. A total of 10 were in the tank, only one dead. They had a week of transition from shipment. One of the staff noted that this batch seemed particularly healthy with few deaths in transport so I hope this is a good sign.

So, I bought the nine survivors. Currently, they're sitting in a 2.5 gallon tank with a small heater and airstone to keep it comfortable. I got some extra water from the tank that they were in to help in the transition process. The shop kept them in a mild brackish so about every hour I'm adding a cup of aquarium water from my 20G with three elegant corys. In about two days when the water is basically the same and the brackish has been diluted enough, I'll add them to the current aquarium.

Everything seems good, no damaged jaws and they are taking to the TetraMin flake food very well. A number of times when I dropped a flake in, a couple would move in and one would run off with the entire piece and completely eat it. Once they get moved into the large aquarium, I'll try them on blood worms when I don't have to panic about excess food polluting the water.

Most are still in the colorless juvenile state but two have some red on their fins.

Fingers crossed! I'll take pictures once everything settles down a bit and I'm done my homework.

Anything else I should be doing?

Thanks
Greg L-P

 

[GL-P]

So, here's some pictures of my newest fish.

At least three are definitely skinnier than the others so I suspect they are males. They also have a longer lower jaw.

Sorry about the poor lighting but my digital camera was having serious issues focusing on the fish close to the front rather than the wall at the back. I also think the movement of the surface messed with the camera's auto-focus.

The SG is about 1.002 after 3 cups of freshwater water were added in 3 hours. I'll let them sit overnight and see how they fair. After the inital shock of being added to a new tank, they've settled down and stopped attacking their reflections.

I'll do a test of the pH and will tweak the aquarium to match the halfbeak's water when it's time to combine them.

 

[helterskelter]

The one fish i can see clearly in the background looks like it may be a Hemirhamphodon pogonognathus

but it's difficult to be sure, but it would explain the longer than average jaw

Males in the Wrestling Halfbeak have a notch at the front of the anal fine called a "andropodia"
and in Hemirhamphodon pogonognathus the notch is at the rear of the anal fin from what i remember.

Loverly looking fish though, hope they do well.

 

[GL-P]

Everyone of them is still alive and fairly active. I pretty pleased considering I paid $1.99/fish and have never dealt with anything more complex than a cory!

Thanks helterskelter! I had a look at the description of Hemirhamphodon pogonognathus and it says that they have a little bit of extra growth at the tip of their jaw. Some of mine appear to have something a little thicker at the end but it's definitely not a broken jaw like in some pictures. It's hard to tell though.

Unfortunately they settled down faster than I expected and started to get territorial so I added a floating plastic plant to help the weaker ones hide. About half have some sort of fin damage but I don't know if that was recently when I had them or at the LFS.

The other issue is that they are messier eaters than I anticipated. I planned on a bare, no filter tank for two days but after only one, it's starting to get a little cloudy. Problem is, the water level is a little low for my filter and I don't want to shock them with a big dump of fresh water. I know they should be FW, but the measured Sg is brackish so I don't want to rush the transition process.

A little less food tonight and some more filtering manually will hopefully keep the levels down. I have added a simple ammonia filter bag and some drops of ammonia and nitrate nitrite neutralizer to keep the levels down. It appears that what is in the water is mechanical debris. So, I doubt that there will be any issues.

Depending on what Sg I get and how closely I can match the pH between the tanks, I'll see if I can move them over early tomorrow morning.

When everything settles down, I'll also start determining sex and species.

Interesting bunch though. And even if these little guys don't do too well, I'll probably get some more because I really like their shape and small sized as compared to needlefish and similar species.

new Halfbeak addict!
Greg

 

[helterskelter]

Here is my friends article on half beaks
http/www.livingfish.co.uk/forum/article.asp?art=856

Sure fish48 will be along soon as that his article

 

[nmonks]

Identifying Hemirhamphodon isn't difficult. Only the males have the "beard" though. Also, it is often lost during capture and transit. Anyway, the photograph below shows three different genera of halfbeaks. The top one is Dermogenys. Note the medium-length beak, the tapering body, and the streamlined shape. Hemirhamphodon is in the middle. Note the very long beak, the very narrow body, and the way the tail fin is closed up instead of open. Finally, Nomorhamphus is at the bottom. Note the short beak and the rather sturdy, barrel-chested appearance. For any given size, Nomorhamphus is always more robust looking than the other two genera, which are far more slender.

Few of these halfbeaks naturally occur in brackish water. Hemirhamphodon live in acidic (pH 5-6) water with zero hardness, and when kept in anything else usually get sick and die. They cannot tolerate dirty water or bacterial infections. Dermogenys are primarily freshwater fish though some species occur in brackish water. Water chemistry doesn't seem to matter much, and these are easily the most easy to care for halfbeaks. Nomorhamphodon prefer freshwater, with perhaps one species (N. ebrardtii) that I know of also occuring in slightly brackish water. Most species want water that is slightly soft and acidic, though N. ebrardtii at least prefers slightly hard and alkaline. Regardless, they don't like sudden water chemistry changes.

I have some pages on my experience of keeping and breeding halfbeaks at the links below. I've successfully bred Dermogenys and Nomorhamphus, but as yet no luck with Hemirhamphodon.

http/homepage.mac.com/nmonks/aquaria/halfbeaks.html
http/homepage.mac.com/nmonks/aquaria/halfbeakbreeding.html

The only additional advice I'd give you is this: in the wild, these fish eat a lot of plant matter, things like pollen apparently. It seems to be critical to provide them with meaty and vegetarian foods. As a staple, consider using Spirulina-algae flake foods. My halfbeaks seem to enjoy it, and others have found algae flake to be accepted by their halfbeaks, too.

Cheers, Neale

 

[GL-P]

I definitely have Dermogenys.

Some have red fins, others do not. Could be that some are still juveniles?

I had to leave them since there was a death in the family and when I came back, the thermometer read 29-30C So, my poor halfbeaks have been at 30C for 5 days. Usually I've had no problem regulating the temperature and I didn't touch anything. The blinds were drawn so there was no inadvertent heating there.

I had seven alive when I left and seven are currently alive so the high temperature obviously hasn't led to an early demise for any.

What should I look out for though? I figure fungus and infections will be the main issue.

Thanks
Greg

 

[GL-P]

I definitely have Dermogenys.

Some have red fins, others do not. Could be that some are still juveniles?

I had to leave them since there was a death in the family and when I came back, the thermometer read 29-30C So, my poor halfbeaks have been at 30C for 5 days. Usually I've had no problem regulating the temperature and I didn't touch anything. The blinds were drawn so there was no inadvertent heating there.

I had seven alive when I left and seven are currently alive so the high temperature obviously hasn't led to an early demise for any.

What should I look out for though? I figure fungus and infections will be the main issue.

I did some closer inspections and have determined that my fish are completely fine despite the overheat.

I went through and determined that it looks like I have 50/50 split male female. I'd prefer more females but we'll see how they take. The males are definitely healthy looking and the females have the expected appearance.

The halfbeaks also like ground up shrimp pellets which are intended for corydoras. The bloodworms went over well with everyone in the tank.

One poor young male halfbeak managed to get a piece of plastic stuck in its mouth somehow. A pair of tweezers freed it from the halfbeak's mouth.

I think everything has finally calmed down. It's been a rough week...

My halfbeaks appear to be pairing up since most of the aggresiveness is male/female. The males are approaching the females directly. One everything settles down, I hope to breed them so I'm not so panicked about losing one.

Sorry for some of my silly newbie questions....
Greg