Pencil Fish

[steeler58]

How many of you have kept Pencil Fish of any kind?

I've only been able to keep three of the spieces, the Three Lined, the Coral Red and the Harrison.

All the litature I read over the years painted them as shy and skitish. In my 75 gal with mostly tetras, this was far from the truth. They were always out front, raced the other fish to the top for food and the Red Corals were aggesive when other fish approached thier percieved area.

Even the two Harrisons, yes just two, lived three years and never left each others side. I only had two because I ordered nine Three lined from Foster and Smith and recieved seven Three Lined and the two Harrisons and was never able to locate any more.

If anybody has kept any of the others please share your experiance espically if you have kept the Dwarf spieces.

[steeler58]

Some pics to stimulate coversation

[Jacko]

Ive kept dwarves, purples and reds... Only currently have purples but the dwarves had to be some of my favorite schoolers I've had. Purples arent quite as good at schooling and red arcs... Forget about it. Lol

[hydra01]

Always wanted to keep these. I've never seen them in any LFS though. I'll keep my eye out for them, though. The dwarf ones look awesome

[raven]

I have kept some before would like to again.

[steeler58]

How about mixing them? The three lined never bothered the Harrisons but I read in the old Innes book from the 60's that if you mixed Dwarf's with Three Lined, the three lined would harras the dwarfs. Can anybody verify this through experiance?

[tetrageek]

Pencil fish seem to be peaceful fish but fish will fight with related or smaller species no matter what their temperment.

[steeler58]

I decided to buy 8 dwarf's, they will be here today.

[steeler58]

I ended up buying the three lined spieces. They have been in my Tank for three days now, seem to have settled in well. They are not intimitaded by the Emperor's like i thought they might.

[steeler58]

Well after two weeks in the tank I have found that they do not school as well as I remember LOL. They swim in all regions of the tank looking for food.