Table of contents for March 2023 in Practical Fishkeeping

SPECIES SHOWCASE Mouthbrooding Betta WHEN I MENTION in fishkeeping circles that I'm a Betta breeder almost everyone assumes that I'm talking flashy variants of the Siamese fighter, Betta splendens. Only a handful enquire about the exact species I keep, knowing that there are dozens of other existing Betta. For the majority, ‘Betta’ is still a synonym for a mindlessly mad fighter fish that murders its conspecifics at every given opportunity. The seemingly mismatched species discussed below are very far from this stereotype: they don't (usually) fight and don't even build bubblenests like their ‘regular’ relatives. They inhabit a wide range of habitats from acidic swamps to karstic pools and sport various colours from brown to sparkling blue. What links them together is that they've all successfully adopted mouthbreeding as a…

DWARF DRAGON GOBY To45cm 60x30x30cm Slightlyacidictoalkalinewater; 6.5-8.0pH,2-18°H 15-25C Theeasiestspeciestofind, priced from around £8 FLAME GOBY Size To 5cm 60x30x30cm Neutraltoalkalinewater 70-8.0pH,12-20°H 18-24C Veryrarefishinthe UK, expect to pay upwards of £30 CLIFFORD POPE'S GOBY Size To around 5cm 60x30x30cm Slightlyacidictoalkalinewater; 6.5~8.0pH, 2-18°H ‘ 15-24C Weveonlyseenthese once or twice in the UK, at around £15 each (and that was years ago) RED SPOTTED GOBY To55cm 60x30x30cm Acidictoalkalinewater 6.0-8.0pH,2-14°H 15-25C Makesoccasionalappearancesinspecialist stores, from around £15…

MARINES Unicornfishes MAGICAL, MYSTERIOUS, BUT ultimately mythical, unicorns have captured the imagination for generations. Immortalised with an equine body and a single horn, throughout history they have been famed and revered for their grace and beauty. From their earliest description in ancient Greek literature, their rarity and reputed restorative powers meant that, even as recently as the 18th century, European royals prized their horns for perceived medicinal and healing properties. But ultimately, as we all know, unicorns in this form are creatures entrenched in fiction, and firmly filed within the vaults of cryptozoology. While we think of unicorns as land-based beasts, they do still have one hoof squarely in the underwater scene. Those supposed horns throughout history were simply misappropriated male narwhal tusks—less a medical panacea, more an elongated tooth…

SPECIES SHOWCASE Orthochromis CURRENTLY, 19 VALID species are included in the genus Orthochromis (along with two more: the undescribed Orthochromis sp. Igamba and Orthochromis sp. red). In 2018 icthyologist Frederic Schedel published the scientific paper Description of five new rheophilic Orthochromis species (Teleostei:Cichlidae) from the Upper Congo drainage in Zambia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. One of those five river-loving fish, Orthochromis indermauri, is the species I present here. The epithet indermauri is in honour of Swiss ichthyologist Adrian Indermaur, who discovered the species in 2014 and substantially recorded it through photography and video footage. Identifying Orthochromis Orthochromis indermauri has an elongated body shape (a lot like goby cichlids) and is only slightly flattened laterally, with a strongly ovate cross-section. The head is relatively small and ends in…

SPECIES SHOWCASE Gold shadow catfish I RECENTLY PUBLISHED AN article in the Journal of the Catfish Study Group which has hopefully gone some way to clarifying which scientific names we should use for these fish. Yet I soon realised that although I had found a way to differentiate the species, I had got the names the wrong way around! More on that later. Francis Hamilton described Pimelodus rama and Pimelodus chandramara in the seminal work, ‘An account of the fishes found in the river Ganges’ (1822). Since then, various authors have classed them both as valid species or just one of them, and two generic names have been described for each of the two species: Rama for P. rama, and Chandramara for P. chandramara. I've found that the two species…

ADVICE Fishkeeping Know-how THAT BIG FISH eat little fish borders on banality, but within fishkeeping circles, the underlying point—that some fish are indeed predators on others—remains controversial. There are two main objections. The first is that the use of live ‘feeders’ is cruel, the suffering inflicted on the small fish in no way justifying their usefulness as food. The second objection is that the use of feeder fish isn't just unethical but actually harmful, endangering the health of the predatory being kept. In fairness, very few aquarists use live fish as food. The overwhelming majority of aquarists will be using dried foods (such as fish flakes) to feed their guppies and neons, alongside occasional treats such as frozen bloodworms. Live foods, if used at all, will be limited to small,…

AQUASCAPING George Farmer I AM HUGE FAN of the classic Nature Aquarium aquascape style pioneered by the late, great Takashi Amano. I'm particularly fond of his works from the late 1990s and early 2000s. If you've seen any of my aquascapes you may hopefully appreciate that influence, and I would indeed be honoured. Densely planted layouts with plenty of colour, a mixture of textures, bold and relatively simple hardscape compositions combined with carefully considered small shoaling species are the order of the day. I remember Amano first using the open sand foreground technique circa 2004 in favour of the relatively high-maintenance and demanding fully planted carpets. So, I guess it's no surprise that my latest aquascape here in this 413 litre Oase HighLine 400 aquarium somewhat pays homage to the…

THE PFK TEAM past and present were shocked and saddened to hear that former Editor Matt Clarke has passed away. Matt was an avid reader, contributor and later Editor in Chief of Practical Fishkeeping, over an era that spanned some twenty years. He built the original PFK website in his lunch break, a website that grew into one of the largest in magazine publishing and one that he later won an award and a promotion for. Matt was a prodigy, with a seemingly photographic memory of fish scientific names which he combined with scientific qualifications to become a force in the global fishkeeping scene. Work experience included the Museum of Natural History, Sparsholt College, and several well-known retailers before becoming technical editor at PFK, a role he was perfect for.…

INSPIRATION Goby biotope RHINOGOBIUS IS a genus of freshwater gobies native to most parts of eastern Asia. At the time of writing, there are 72 recognised and described species. As with many other freshwater fish genera, research in the field is lacking, and the exact mapping of the genus is far from complete. The distribution and division of many species is debated, and undescribed samples are numerous. Most of the known species are freshwater types, and all are relatively small and streamlined in shape. The typical size varies from about 3-9 cm. Only a few species are available in the hobby, and even fewer can be found in the general aquarium store, and there are even certain regional restrictions in relation to imports. (Editor's note: In England and Wales we…