I picked up some banded panchax, also known as clown killifish, for the Fireplace Aquarium. The local fish store (LFS) only had four of them and they were all female. This is because the males have showier fins so mostly that’s what people buy. Nevermind – I think the females look great. Friendly LFS person explained you can have a group of females but not a group of males because the males get territorial with each other. LFS person did NOT explain that banded panchax need soft acidic water… that’s not what we have in Cambridge. That said, it’s been a couple weeks now and the panchax seem to be doing great. The water in the Fireplace Aquarium is definitely not soft. Out of the tap it isn’t acidic either, although the CO2 injection does lower the pH. I hope they will be ok.
Banded panchax live at the surface
banded panchax right at the surface (left side)
Fish tend to hang out at a species-specific depth in the aquarium. For most of the “bigger” fish like the barbs and the rummy-nosed tetras that means just above the densely planted foreground plants – Microsorum pteropus ‘Windelov’, Cryptocoryne nurii and Schismatoglottis prietoi – about 10 cm from the aquasoil substrate. The ember tetras on the other hand seem to prefer the middle layers around 25 cm up from the substrate (15 cm below the water surface). The banded panchax hang out right at the very top most of the time directly under the water surface and their mouths are slightly upturned so they can easily scarf the noms floating on the water. I thought when they said ‘surface dwelling’ that might mean the top 5 cm of the water or so, but these guys (gals) are max 1 cm from the surface pretty much all of the time.
The banded panchax have a bit of a reputation for not just being at the surface but for jumping clear out of the water as well, so best kept in a covered set-up. Obviously that’s not a problem for the Fireplace Aquarium. To be fair, I have yet to observe the panchax trying to leave the water column.