Breeding Fact Sheet No. 4

Melanotaenia pierucciae, Allen & Renyaan, 1996

Heiko Bleher, Paola Pierucci and Patrick de Rham discovered this species in 1995. It has been named in honour of Paola Pierucci.

On an annual club visit to Holland in 1999, I was able to get some nice specimens of this species of Rainbow fish. All survived the journey home with no apparent ill effects. They were placed in a 24 x 15 x 12 tank that was planted with a couple of Amazon swords. At this stage, they were about 2.5 inches long. They were fed live foods, daphnia, tubifex etc and dried food. As they came into condition, the females were moved to a tank containing two large spawning mops. Live food feeding continued and after two days, the male fish were introduced. This was done in the late evening prior to the lights being turned out. The next morning, the fish were busily diving in and out of the spawning mops and within 12 hours, there were many eggs apparent. The eggs were gently taken off of the mops and placed in a small container with some of the original tank water. Any fungus eggs were removed on a daily basis. After 12 days the eggs hatched. As the fry hatched, they were transferred to a 10 x 8 x 8inch tank filled with water from the spawning tank. After 24hours, they were looking for food. The fry are extremely small, as with all rainbow fishes. I fed liquid fry food, diluted with water. At the same time, I introduced a sponge filter. The diluted food was fed at almost a drip-by-drip basis ensuring that food was available at all times. Growth was slow and it was some time before they were able to take micro worm. At approximately 0.25 inches, they were put into a larger tank. After several weeks, they were taking finely chopped tubifex worms and at this stage, they started to put on size. After about 3 months of age, they were in the region of 0.75 to 1 inch long. I only raised about 12 to 2inches; the remainder were given away to fellow aquarists. Unfortunately, the adults did not survive very long. They came out in boils, bumps and became very sick looking fish. I do not think it was the dreaded rainbow disease, as no other rainbows that I was keeping at the time, or since, have shown the same symptoms and no special precautions have been taken.

There are excellent pictures of this species available on the Internet.

© Pam Boyle, 2003. This fact sheet may not be reproduced in any form without the permission of the author.