Interesting Fish Seen About Town
 

I was at Brooklyn Zoo today and noticed they have some really nice Columbian Tetras that Joe G. so eloquently wrote about breeding in the latest Aquatica. These fish are hard to find and are rarely seen in retail fish stores. The ones at Brooklyn Zoo are about 1 to 1 1/2 inches long and are about 1 to 2 months from Breeding size. The colors were excellent considering they are in the store tanks. They will definitely get more intensely colored and larger after a couple of months in your tank and will be ready to breed. This is an excellent chance to get these beautiful fish at a very good price.

I also visited Petland Discount on Avenue U in the Home Depot Mall. The manager Marty eagerly showed me a group of rarely seen Metallic Blue Jack Dempsey's. The fish were only juveniles about 2 inches long, but the colors were striking intense Blue. Marty said the intense color was developed by natural breeding and was not artificially introduced. This leads me to believe this is a blue morph of the standard Jack Dempsey color and will breed true. I like the idea that they are juveniles. This gives the hobbyists a chance to raise them and acclimate them to your food and conditions which will ensure their health and will add to your success if you decide to breed them. I am not a cichlid breeder or cichlid keeper, but if I were, I would definitely have this beautiful fish in my collection. Like many large South American cichlids they are very sociable while they are young, but become more aggressive as they approach breeding age. (just like people) The fish is a bit pricey, but for a cichlid keeper, this an opportunity to find this rare beautiful and intense color variation in a local fish store.

Please feel free to add to this Post if you find other Interesting fish in local stores. :wave: