I first acquired this species during the summer of 1995
from a well known Northampton adventurer. Five fry were
presented to myself prior to an auction they were around
5 / 6 weeks old and had already started to colour up. The
parents had been wild caught late 1994 in the Moin Docks
area of Costa Rica. Being young fish I housed them in a
8 x 6 x 6 show jar with daily water changes of 50 %. My
fish house being space heated the temperature would be around
75 degrees. The young were feeding well on baby brineshrimp
crushed flake and cyclops. At around ten weeks they started
taking small bloodworm both live and frozen. These fry grew
steadily throughout the remainder of 1995 moving onto larger
quarters, 12 x 8 x 8, and eventually sexed out into 2 males
and three females. As the females grew they started to produce
fry at six months, six to eight fry at first , six weeks
between broods. The size of spawns grew in line with the
size of the females. Soon the norm was between fifteen and
twenty.
When gravid the females were housed in a separate aquarium
12 x 8 x 8 with java moss. The female did not bother her
fry after spawning although the fry were eventually moved
to receive the same treatment as their parents.The photograph
does not really do this colourful fish justice .This species
is still in the hobby and is another one to keep in a colony
as it seems to do better. The photo shows a young female
around six month old.
Information:
Distribution: Costa Rica.
Size: Male : 4.0cm. Female: 5.0cm.
Colour Pattern: The body is an olive / grey colour
with light grey belly. The sides have around10 to
12 black vertical streaks and the fins are of a light yellow
colour. The base of the dorsal is black going into red for
the top third of the dorsal which is edged in black. The
anal fin has black markings involving the gonopodium of
the males and the anal has a black edge on the hook-like
anal fin of the female.
Remarks: In my experience this is a peaceful
species of Brachyraphis. I did
not have any problems as I keep most of my fish in species
tanks. Like a lot of Brachyraphis species it is
difficult to keep them for more than two generations.
Family: Poeciliidae.
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