Red-chinned Panchax

Morning all!

I'm now the proud owner of 5 red-chinned panchax. They're currently exploring my tank with the lights off. Will switch them back on in a couple of hours.
I must say they are really beautiful. They're a silvery-grey colour on the body, with black vertical stripes. The males have a red throat and purple and yellow edging on their fins – much more colourful than I was expecting.
Apparently they're prolific breeders, though the fry will probably not survive in my community tank. the breeder is local though, and says he'll advise me on how to breed and keep the fry if i want to at a later point.

Not sure what kind of species they are – maybe some kind of killifish? The breeder says they live for about 7–8 years.

Will post some piccies once everyone's settled in.

Hi Sue,
No, the breeder said they live quite a few years. I've ordered some floating plants for them, as they do like to hide under these and I only have one pretty ragged looking one at the moment.
A thing I forgot to ask about them was diet though. Currently my fish get hikari granules  for tropical fish, and they get bloodworm or daphnia (frozen and defrosted in the tank water) once a week before water change day. I also alternate between fresh veggies and hikari sinking algae wafers for Percy, my Bn plec, and they all love these as well.
With this diet be Ok for the panchax do you think? 

I think I'll see how they take to the frozen variety first, together with all the other stuff that gets fed to my fish.
That reminds me of A level Biology. We were each allocated a number of Drosophila when we studied genetics.
Unfortunately, I and my lab partner decided (misguidedly) to 'set them free', whereupon they spent the next few weeks buzzing round our teachers head every time he tried to do some teaching – he wasn't impressed.
Needless to say, we weren't very popular in the Biology lab and I didn't take that particular subject any further.
 

Hi Richard,

Yes, you can definately see that their mouths 'upturn' for surface feeding.
This is probably a stupid question, but not having a good track record with drosophilia (see earlier post) how do you get hold of a culture and keep it contained. Bearing in mind that my tanks and their equipment are all in my office and I don't have anywhere else to keep them.

Having said that, I contacted the breeder yesterday and he said that he feeds his on frozen bloodworm/daphnia twice a week and general fish flake for the rest of the time.

Hi Richard,

Great, thanks for the advice. I fed them this morning, along with everyone else, and they've cruised up and down the surface of the tank, hoovering up as fast as they can. Very interesting fish to watch. I'm very pleased with them