I’m working on breeding Apistogramma Cacatuoides.
I bought a group of 12x Pencilfish from my LFS. The manager isn’t all that familiar with identifying species. His supplier claimed they are “Coral Red Pencilfish.” I’m thinking they’re not.
Are these Beckford’s? Golden? Something else?
Male:
Female (?):
Group Photos:
Sorry about all the BBS in the water. It was a big new hatch feeding day.
I imagine this might be complicated by some of these being immature, and only recently acclimated.
There’s also the _possibility_ that separate subspecies got bundled together.
But for what it’s worth, there’s already breeding behavior!
Beckford's pencilfish is a really neat fish. They're incredibly variable, based on where you collect them, with some populations being really red (almost as red as the coral red, but not quite). It also doesn't hurt that individual fish can radically change their patterns, which is based not only on breeding condition, but time of day, mood, and so much more; you can watch fish change from being bright red to drab and brown within a few minutes.