How many dwarf Pencilfish are there?

What kind of fish is a red pencil fish?

Pencilfish (Golden, Red, Dwarf) – Types, Care, Size, Feeding & Details! Pencilfish (Nannostomus) have various types like Dwarf Pencilfish, Red Pencilfish, Golden Pencilfish, etc. It is a genus of freshwater ray-finned fish from the Lebiasinidae family.

How many types of pencilfish are there?

Pencilfish (Nannostomus) have various types like Dwarf Pencilfish, Red Pencilfish, Golden Pencilfish, etc. It is a genus of freshwater ray-finned fish from the Lebiasinidae family. It currently includes about 20 species.

What is a dwarf pencilfish?

Its common name is Dwarf Pencilfish as they only reach a total length of around 4,5 centimeters. Nannostomus marginatus is a nice and active little fish. Their behaviour and colour make them a nice species to keep. In the wild you can find a couple of different colour morphs.

How many eggs do dwarf pencilfish lay?

Breeding dwarf pencilfishes is challenging since they lay very few eggs and eat them rather intensively. Potentially an adult female can lay hundreds of eggs in one spawning, but in real life, at the end of the spawning, there isn’t much left from the clutch.

What is a golden pencilfish?

The Golden Pencilfish (Nannostomus beckfordi) is also known to tropical fish keeping enthusiasts as Beckford’s Pencilfish or Brown Pencilfish.

What does a pencilfish look like?

The Golden Pencilfish has a long, elongated body that is gold with a silvery band along the middle of the flanks, bordered above by a reddish band, and below by a blackish band with a cream to white underbelly. It possesses a black spot on the lower half of it’s gill covers and has a red caudal fin.

How many dwarf pencilfish in a flock?

Dwarf pencilfish are social fish. The number of individuals in a flock is a minimum of 10 fish. The small size allows dwarf pencilfish to be kept in small aquariums from 30 liters. The dwarf pencilfish prefers the upper and middle layers of the aquarium.

Do pencilfish get along with other fish?

Golden Pencilfish gets along well with small species that are not prone to aggression. The usual size of dwarf pencilfish is 2.5 – 3 cm, for which the species got its name. It is widespread in almost the entire Amazon basin from source to mouth.

How to keep dwarf pencilfish in a small tank?

This is due to the fish’s small size and its fast metabolism. To keep a small school of dwarf pencilfishes, a small-sized tank of about 20 liters capacity (4,4 gallons), but larger volume is desirable since this is a schooling fish. The tank bottom should better be dark-colored and moderately planted with enough free space for the fish to swim.

What is the size of a pencilfish?

The usual size of dwarf pencilfish is 2.5 – 3 cm, for which the species got its name. It is widespread in almost the entire Amazon basin from source to mouth. The body color is silver, there is a characteristic wide black stripe from head to tail, just above it is another, narrower one.

What kind of fish is a dwarf pencilfish?

Dwarf pencilfish (Nannostomus marginatus) is a freshwater aquarium fish, one of the smallest representatives of the Lebiasinidae family, Characiformes unit. Due to breeding challenges and the small number of eggs they lay, dwarf pencilfish can’t be considered popular tank fish.

Do pencilfish eat their eggs?

These fish are egg layers and they tend to scatter their eggs over plants. These fish will eat their own eggs and fry, so remove them from the tank after spawning. There are currently 19 species of Pencilfish which have been identified but not all of them are common in the aquarium trade.

What do dwarf pencilfish eat?

Dwarf pencilfish has a rather small mouth; therefore, they prefer eating different small crustaceans such as cyclopes and daphnia. They also eagerly feed on small tubifex and blood worms, both live and frozen ones.

Do dwarf pencilfish lay eggs?

Due to breeding challenges and the small number of eggs they lay, dwarf pencilfish can’t be considered popular tank fish. Nowadays, they are seldom encountered in aquariums, even though they are perfect for keeping in nano aquariums which are currently gaining popularity.

Is the Golden pencilfish the right fish for your aquarium?

Use our fish community creator tool to plan your tank set up and ensure that the Golden Pencilfish is the right fish for your aquarium. The Golden Pencilfish is one of the most adaptable of the pencilfish family and unlike other pencilfish which may require soft acidic water, the Golden Pencilfish can be kept in hard water.

Where do pencilfish live?

The homeland of the Pencilfish is South America. This fish can be found in the Amazon and Rio Negro. They gravitate towards heavily overgrown water bodies with a large number of snags. From the numerous litter of leaves of tropical trees, water is saturated with humic substances, which give it a characteristic “black” shade.

What do pencilfish eat?

These fish enjoy brine shrimp and other small live foods as well as algae wafers and some fresh vegetation. In order to increase your chances for success, it is best to remove Pencilfish from the community tank for breeding. These fish are egg layers and they tend to scatter their eggs over plants.

What kind of fish is a pencil fish?

Pencilfish (Nannostomus) have various types like Dwarf Pencilfish, Red Pencilfish, Golden Pencilfish, etc. It is a genus of freshwater ray-finned fish from the Lebiasinidae family.

What does a pencil fish look like?

Pencilfish generally exhibit gold or iridescent coloration on the body, often with one or more horizontal black stripes. Most also have some red, orange, or maroon coloration in their fins with splashes of color on the sides of the body as well.

What does a Beckford pencilfish look like?

Pencilfish Characteristics Beckford’s pencilfish are slender, torpedo-shaped fish that rarely breach the 2-inch mark (yet may grow to 2½ inches). The grouping in my main tank consists of a range of different sizes and ages, from the recently born (and those that have just come out of hiding) to mature adults that are a couple of years old.

What does a Beckford’s pencilfish look like?

Like most of the family representatives fish has a dark brown stripe along its body with a yellowish stripe above it. The fish abdomen is white. This isn’t a large fish, so it can’t be kept is a small tank. Beckford’s pencilfish is not very demanding, but it requires some experience to keep it successfully in a tank.

What kind of fish do Beckford pencilfish get along with?

The Beckford pencilfish is calm and peaceful. Because of its size you shouldn’t keep fish together with large, aggressive and predator fish species. Even just too active fish species like tiger barb, for example, won’t do as tank mates as well. The fish gets along well with dwarf cichlids, for example, with Apistogramma ramirezi.

Is a pencilfish a good fish to keep?

The Joy of Keeping Pencilfish If you’re bored of common tetras, pencilfish might make an excellent alternative for a schooling community fish. Learn about this small–mouthed and highly tolerant species, along with its complex yet rewarding breeding behavior.

What size aquarium for a dwarf pencilfish?

A Ph of around 7-8 is okay. You should set your water temperature at 23°C. A 5-gallon aquarium is comfortable for a pair of Gulf Coast Pygmy Sunfish. A 10-gallon tank can comfortably accommodate a modest school of this fish. If you want to include other tankmates, consider a 20-gallon tank. 8. Dwarf Pencilfish – Nannostomus marginatus