louis_last
Member
I plan to try and breed these. Right now I have two Dario Hysginon, I believe they are a male and female pair, and a single male Dario dario.
I've been searching for a few months now for female Dario dario with no luck whatsoever. The male who I found on his own amongst a huge shoal of tetras in a local shop was in a bad way when I bought him. Almost transparent and nearly totally colourless with a sunken stomach, I wasn't even sure he would survive but with care and a diet of livefood he's thriving.
The other picture is what I hope is a female Dario Hysginon, I will try to update this thread with a picture of what I believe to be the male if I can get a decent picture. As well as being obviously more colourful and having larger fins, he is slightly larger and less compact than the 'female', with more pronounced stripes of blue and black on the pelvic fins and a larger black spot on the dorsal fin.
All three share a densely planted tank with some red ramshorn snails, one amano shrimp, four cherry shrimp and no other fish for the time being. I understand from german forums that D. dario and D. hysginon cannot hybridize.
I have never observed any aggression towards the shrimp or snails. Occasionally the male D. hysginon will flare his fins and dance in front of the smaller D. dario but only ever very briefly before apparently deciding he doesn't pose a threat. They don't seem to nip or chase each other and occasionally all three hunt together picking little infusorians off the hamburg mattenfilter in their tank.
If I make sure there's always plenty of livefood in the tank the male D. hysginon takes up residence inside A piece of hollow wood and ventures out less, I believe this is breeding behaviour. If I feed less then generally he's out hunting about with the others.
I feed them copepods which reproduce in the tank as well as unidentified species of Daphnia and Moina I have in isolated cultures and seived zooplankton from a mixed culture started from healthy pond water. The mixed culture contains more than one species of copepod, rotifers, Chydora sp, paramecium and various protozoans. I feed all the livefood cultures on organic Spirulina powder mixed with yeast.
Above all else the fish seem to favour copepods. These are really brilliant and characterful little fish, I hope I can find a female for the little Dario dario. If anyone has any or knows of anywhere selling them I'd love to know!
EDIT to add pictures of Dario Hysginon male, he's much harder to photograph than the female or the other male because he tends to hide more during the day. He comes out to feed and display to the female now she's getting fatter but I think the light may be too bright for him as he also displays better colours at night. You should be able to see the differences between him and the female.
I've been searching for a few months now for female Dario dario with no luck whatsoever. The male who I found on his own amongst a huge shoal of tetras in a local shop was in a bad way when I bought him. Almost transparent and nearly totally colourless with a sunken stomach, I wasn't even sure he would survive but with care and a diet of livefood he's thriving.
The other picture is what I hope is a female Dario Hysginon, I will try to update this thread with a picture of what I believe to be the male if I can get a decent picture. As well as being obviously more colourful and having larger fins, he is slightly larger and less compact than the 'female', with more pronounced stripes of blue and black on the pelvic fins and a larger black spot on the dorsal fin.
All three share a densely planted tank with some red ramshorn snails, one amano shrimp, four cherry shrimp and no other fish for the time being. I understand from german forums that D. dario and D. hysginon cannot hybridize.
I have never observed any aggression towards the shrimp or snails. Occasionally the male D. hysginon will flare his fins and dance in front of the smaller D. dario but only ever very briefly before apparently deciding he doesn't pose a threat. They don't seem to nip or chase each other and occasionally all three hunt together picking little infusorians off the hamburg mattenfilter in their tank.
If I make sure there's always plenty of livefood in the tank the male D. hysginon takes up residence inside A piece of hollow wood and ventures out less, I believe this is breeding behaviour. If I feed less then generally he's out hunting about with the others.
I feed them copepods which reproduce in the tank as well as unidentified species of Daphnia and Moina I have in isolated cultures and seived zooplankton from a mixed culture started from healthy pond water. The mixed culture contains more than one species of copepod, rotifers, Chydora sp, paramecium and various protozoans. I feed all the livefood cultures on organic Spirulina powder mixed with yeast.
Above all else the fish seem to favour copepods. These are really brilliant and characterful little fish, I hope I can find a female for the little Dario dario. If anyone has any or knows of anywhere selling them I'd love to know!
EDIT to add pictures of Dario Hysginon male, he's much harder to photograph than the female or the other male because he tends to hide more during the day. He comes out to feed and display to the female now she's getting fatter but I think the light may be too bright for him as he also displays better colours at night. You should be able to see the differences between him and the female.
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