Tropical Fish Forum
Tropical Fish Keeping Help and Advice => Fish Species => Topic started by: MarquisMirage on March 11, 2017, 11:39:19 PM
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I'm wondering if anyone has experience with keeping marbled hatchetfish (or other types) and how many problems did you have with the fish flying? I'm considering some for my Amazonian aquarium to add something to the top/mid layer.
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I have silver hatchets and so far I haven't lost any to jumping. As long as you have a lid on the tank, and perhaps some floating plants to give the fish some cover to make them comfortable, I think you'll be fine. Mine share a tank with glass bloodfin tetras and penguin tetras.
I don't know if I've just been lucky, or if this is normal for commercially available hatchets, but my gang are fairly chilled out about life, and very rarely break the surface of the water, and they've been through all sorts of upheaval. Last year I moved them to another tank so I could change the substrate & replant their tank. Everything went well until I was trying to net the last hatchet, when I heard the unmistakeable splash of a fish jumping. I quickly searched around the tank, on the floor, and in the tank, but couldn't see it. As I was starting to panic I noticed that the fish had actually jumped into the net. :rotfl: Obviously not on purpose, but still funny.
Since then all in the tank are used to me moving décor around their tank, and stayed in their tank without incident even when I removed the pebbles from the tank to leave the plain sand substrate, so it would be easier for me to keep clean.
One of my favourite things is to use forceps to feed them bloodworms at the surface, they go nuts for them. ;D
Funnily enough I picked up a few more from the LFS on Friday to take my total to 10, so I currently have some in the South American tank and the new ones in a quarantine tank. All good so far.
I think that it's also worth mentioning that I've never heard one of them hit the lid of the tank - i.e. try to jump from the tank but be stopped by the lid. When I first got them I left quite a gap between the top of the water and the lid of the tank, thinking it would help to limit any problems, but considering how far they can jump that may not have been as useful as I thought at the time. Floating plants seems to be far more useful in providing cover and keeping them happy.
I would certainly recommend them if you are looking for something for the top of the tank. Their body shape is lovely, and in my experience they are very peaceful, good with other fish, and nowhere near as jumpy as you'd expect. ;D
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Cool, I think I'll get some, thanks.