kiwi

Only 2cm. Small but very colourful. I have found them to be very shy fish once they are mature. The young fish don't seem to be shy like the adults though.

I'm not sure if they are slow to grow or not really. By the time they are 2 months old they are just starting to develope their adult colour, spots and orange finage. Overall they are small fish even at adult age.

Here is a little about their natural habitat. It looks like they can survive quite cool water like jenniferh states. This article is from: CelestialPearlDanio.com The Celestial Pearl Danio originates from the country of Myanmar. The general location is near the city of Hopong not far from Taungyi, capital of Southern Shan State. This is a mountainous region where the elevation ranges from just over a half mile to nearly a mile above sea level. The water where these fish are found is crystal clear with a pH of 7.3 and the conductivity of 250 micro siemen. The pond bottom is covered with sand. The area is mostly grassland and rice paddies, so the ponds are open to the sun and filled with a rich variety of aquatic plants. The local weather conditions range from warm and pleasant in the summer months with temperatures near 95F to cold, damp, and miserable with temperatures near freezing during the rainy season.

Personally I have never kept them at 30C. My fish are kept between 24-26C.

My project of breeding Celestial Pearl Danios is still on-going with average success which I am happy with. I have refreshed my breeding stock from last years fry and I expect good results sometime next year. Here are a couple of pictures one of a breeding pair the other is of a few days old fry.

Your firewall is in 'Stealth' mode, you are not sending a referral so the server rejects the call and overwrites the location of the picture. That is why you see 10 Homer Simpsons instead of Gastromyzon. It is necessary to send fnzas.org.nz as referral.

Due to my inattention, I have lost a large number of very small fry from a later spawing to the larger fry from my first spawning. It seems that larger Celestials eat the newly hatched fry. I am now seperating the larger fry into another tank from the newly hatched.

Thanks for the information about breeding pairs only. Last weekend I collected 50+ fry in my setup, so while it is working for me with more than one pair in a heavily planted tank I am happy.

Thanks for the info about the 50% water changes. The breeding Celestials are over 2 years old and maybe if they were younger fish they may lay more eggs! The first batch of fry are now reaching breeding size, so it will be interesting to see if they lay a larger quantity of eggs.

adodge. The tanks are set-up in the garage and are placed about 2 metres away from a large window, where they get filtered morning sun.

I would like to share with you my experience of breeding Celestial Pearl Danios. Three months ago I set-up two 30 litre tanks for breeding Celestial Pearl Danios. Each tank has twelve fish, a mixture of males and females. The bottom of the breeding tanks have a mesh grid for the eggs to fall through. The eggs do not adhere to plants very well as they are not very sticky. Male Danios love to eat the eggs, so you have to have a heavily planted tank or else a mesh grid for the eggs to fall through which the males can not reach. I am syphoning about 15-20 fry a week. Some weeks very few or none at all. Either they do not lay many eggs at once, or else the males are eating the eggs that have not fallen through the mesh and that have adhered to the Christmas Moss. The tanks are heavily planted with Christmas Moss (Vesicularia montagnei). To collect the eggs or fry I shake the Christmas Moss to release any eggs. I syphon the bottom of the tanks (under the mesh grid)twice and week, and transfer any eggs or fry to a 25 litre tank where the fry are raised until they are approximately 5mm in length. I feed the breeding Danios flake food, mosquito larvae and daphnia. The temperature of the breeding tanks is set at 22C and use a sponge filter. I have no artificial lighting on the breeding tanks, and I do a 20% water change once a week. The eggs and fry are raised in a planted 25 litre tank, sponge filter, with no artificial lighting, temperature 22C. The fry are feed twice daily with micro-worms or Wardleys Small Fry Liquid Food. Since there are many different batches of fry in the same tank I also feed brine shrimp to the larger fry. How I am breeding these fish is not due to any former experience in breeding fish in the past. It is rather I think more to a lot of good luck and reading how others have succeeded to breed Celestrials. So far what I am doing has been successful and I have a approximately 50+ fry.

The Aquarium Plant Handbook is a quality book. Very good description and photos of many aquarium plants. If you haven't got this book, then you should consider getting it.

Lilaeopsis brasilienses is dark green, wider flat leaves than the others below. Lilaeopsis novae-zelandiae - a New Zealand Native, light green Lilaeopsis mauritius - commonly known as Hairgrass , dark green The last two plants look very similar except for the colour of green and leaf shape. Lilaeopsis mauritius has a thin cylindrical leave and Lilaeopsis novae-zelandiae has a thin flat leaf. Look at the website http://www.fnzas.org.nz/ under Plants and look up Lilaeopsis

You can find it in the FNZAS Homepage under Plant Survey. Heteranthera zosteraefolia Common Name: Star Grass

The plants I named are in the order of the larger photos