October 27th, 2007
I wasn't planning on buying any fish at the members auction of the BKA 2007 convention - I was saving myself for the show auction the next day - but then a fish I didn't spot earlier on came up, and what a magnificent pair. Fundulopanchax sjoestedti 'Niger Delta', starting price £10 - right across the room flashes of blue and orange were telling me this was a special fish. I raised my hand.
Photographing this fish has been a challenge - all of the images on this page are of the same fish. The light that shines on them can completely alter colouration; without a flash, the colours, particularly amount of blue, depend on the fluorescent tubes above. In a dimly lit tank the fish's colour changes as the fish gets nearer or further from the light source. The two pictures above were taken a few seconds apart. The use of a flash gives a clearer, more defined image (below), however lacking a lot of the blue.
2 weeks on, and how are the doing? Well I set them up in a 12"x12"x18" tank, subdued light, with two very large mops, filter, and nothing else. They are just in my standard water - reverse osmosis, hardened with JBL Aquadur to a hardness of 300ppm, and at a temperature of 23-25 degrees C.
They're pretty hungry, wolfing down a mix of whiteworms, bloodworms, flake, and the odd large redworm. Egg production was slow at first, though has picked up now. The first batch of eggs I picked were placed on peat but all fungused. Are these fish just that little bit too old?
