Tropical Fish Forum
Tropical Fish Keeping Help and Advice => Fish Species => Topic started by: Alex_N on March 26, 2016, 02:38:35 PM
-
My local P@H has Fork Tail Rainbow fish for sale, I believe them to be Pacific Blue - eyes. From what I've gathered on seriouslyfish.com
Are these the same fish under another name?
If they are I was curious to see if anyone has kept these fish, how easy, temperament, etc etc from first hand experience rather than just reading about them.
-
No, they are different fish :
Fork Tail = Pseudomugil furcatus
Pacific Blue Eye = Pseudomugil signifier
So, closely related but different. You can find both if you search for Pseudomugil on Seriously Fish.
-
I keep Pseudomugil sp. 'red neon'. Absolutely stunning fish, hold their own in a community setup with X-ray Tetras and put on some great displays. One thing to note, they are exceptional jumpers. I have lost 5 through the gap around the edge of my tank and so only have 2 remaining. Won't be buying any more until I have a new tank with a better lid!
-
Made a typo before, should be Pacific Blue Eye = Pseudomugil signifer not Pacific Blue Eye = Pseudomugil signifier ................ one"i" too many.
I have Pseudomugil gertrudae on my list for a future stocking.
The Forktail is known for being rather weak, probably from inbreeding as it is suggested all those in aquaria are descended from a single collection.
-
That's interesting Richard. P.gertrudae are very similar to P.sp 'red neon'. The only problem is they're relatively short lived fish, especially given their price. They have spawned on several occasions, but none have hatched before being eaten as far as I'm aware. They may have more luck in your heavily planted setups.
-
Thanks for the clarification and warning lol.
Hmm the possible health issues are worrying, I may have to have a talk with the management to see if they can shed some light on their stock.....I won't hold my breath lol
-
The Forktail also prefers a reasonably high temperature 24 - 28. I settled on P. gertrudae because it is happy at lower temps and I keep my tanks at about 23. But if I want to breed them I'd need to raise it. Apparently floating plants with trailing roots provide ideal shelter for the fry, which live near the surface, so my abundant Amazon frogbit should be ideal.
-
I've kept the fork tailed blue eye or pseudomugil furcatus, I found them very prone to dropsy, they're very fast and very greedy feeders and in a community tank its hard to control their diet. I gave up on them in the end.