Pics of Distichidus Affinis (Tetra Family)

[JamisonBWolsh]

These are in the family of Distichidus. The LARGEST Family of tetras. The affinis grow to a decent size so you can put them in your tank. The others in the family grow TOO large for a 60 gallon (24+ inches) Anyways, these are cool, because early in the morning they form a Large black-bluish spot on both sides of the body. Before I turn the lights on, I have watched these guys MATE!!! The only problem I found is that They LOVE to fin nip!!! Fin nipping usually stays in the group (I have 5) but once in a while I have seen bite marks in the tails of my albino tinfoils and once on my elephant nose. These guys need to be well fed to keep them from nipping!! here they are:

[JamisonBWolsh]

These guys are 5 inches max and 3 inches wide I think. Not common as well. Hard to get. Im not sure if they are bred in captivity or not? I have witnessed breeding behavior in my tank. As you can see they are Dark silver and have a WHITE belly. Very kewl!

[Serrateeth_2002]

They look like large river barbs or pure koi totally unlike those seen in ponds in terms of colour.

[JamisonBWolsh]

sorry...but they arent. They come from africa and have NO relationship to Koi or barbs. In fact, they are closer in relationship to the common neon tetra then those in the barb or koi family.

[Serrateeth_2002]

That's obvious isn't it,these fishes are characin while kois and barbs are cyprinids,how big is the tank?

[Harry Tolen]

http://www.harrytolen.com/images/aqua/disto01.jpg

As this one (Distichodus sexfasciatus)gets larger (in the picture it was probably about 7", now about 10" and still growing), it is losing its color. Still, it was a very attractive fish for the first few years...

Currently, I have some Distichodus decemmaculatus in a 125 gallon tank, and they are doing well. Although they are not as colorful (or large) as the other species, they do make for good conversation pieces.

All Distichodus are avid plant eaters, just for the record.

By the way, your D. affinis do not appear to be showing the characteristic red fins. Or is that just a trick of the light in your photographs?

[JamisonBWolsh]

GREAT!!! Someone that knows what IM talking about! Have you ever had dist. affinis? when they were young, they did have a tint of red on the fins, but now they dont have any red at all. I feed them flakes, brine shrimp and cichlid pellets (for plant eaters- they love this!) Mine is at 5 inches and Live in a 60 gallon tank with 3 albino tinfoils and various other fish. Is your fin nipping each other? I noticed that on 2 there is no nipped fins at all.. the other 3 has SEVERAL nipped fins in the back.They mainly nip themselves...once in a while the tinfoil barbs. Do you have ANY info on them? I cant find ANYTHING on the net (including usenet) about them. Are they RARE? In the family, these are the only smaller specimans I can find that would fit in a 60 gallon. The louloso (spelling?) and the dist. sex grow to Large for a 60 gallon.

[Harry Tolen]

I agree, Distichodus are great! Although I have seen D. affinis in the stores, I have never purchased any. Instead, I selected D. sexfasciatus and D. decemmaculatus. D. sexfasciatus definitely begins to lose its color after about 5 years, but I don't know about D. affinis in that regard. D. decemmaculatus stays smaller, but never develops the bright colors that the others do. Still, it's an attractive semi-schooling fish. D. lussoso is another species that I have looked at, but not purchased. They are very similar in coloration to D. sexfasciatus, with a slightly different shape. If they get to be the same size, however, I definitely don't have room for them.

How many D. affinis do you have, by the way?

[JamisonBWolsh]

I have 5 affinis. 2 of them arent nipped..the other 3 are. Im thinking maybe I have 2 females and 3 males? They all show the same faded color on the fins. There nice, I like them. esp the white bellie is interesting. Yes, those others are great fish in the dist. family, but they do get BIG. Louloso gets big like the dist. sex... except Wider in height. The affinis do school togethor when they fear something or is threatened. a really nice fish though at 5 inches max.

[JamisonBWolsh]

Let me rephrase there coloring. Yes they are dark silver...But if you lok closer you will see many shades of silver to make more of a "shimmer" I dont know reallyy how to put it. In the morning a dark blue/black circle appears on the sides. the coloring is really amazing when looking closer at them.

[Faramir]

These are in the family of Distichidus. The LARGEST Family of tetras.

Just to clarify the science a bit to avoid confusion:

Distichodus is not a family; it is a genus.

There is only one family containing tetras, and that is Characidae. However, not all Characins are tetras.

Sorry, pedantic interlude over, do carry on.

[vfrex]

As far as the red fins go...have you tried a color enhancer like krill to try to bring them out?

[JamisonBWolsh]

I tried flakes, cichlid excel pellets (love this), brineshrimp, food sticks on a daily basis. I never tried kril. What about those color enhancing pellets made to bring out colors out of cichlids? would that work? I know a few brands that is suppose to work wonders in bringing out colors in cichlids.

Im not scientifically inclined with names/genuse's, but you get the point. They are more closely related to neon tetras then barbs or koi.

[vfrex]

Okay, a few things...

1) New Life Spectrum food is supposed to be UNBELIEVABLE. It can be hard to come by, but it is available for order from http://www.fishpost.com/drystock.html

People say the difference between the color of the fish on hikari or other foods vs. the color on NLS is night and day. No hormones, all natural.


2) Krill does have a pigment that brings out the reds in fish. Heres a site that mojo sent me to. As far as krill goes it has:

-Freeze Dried Krill Fines. I guess you can kinda use it as a supplement powder.
-Regular freeze dried krill
-Some HBH pellets with krill in them... "Soft & Moist w/ Krill"

http://www.jehmco.com/

[JamisonBWolsh]

Thanks..I will try the soft krill pellets and the spectrum pellets and see what happens. I have to becareful how much I feed my fish. There is NEVER any leftover food, but the more I feed them, the more waste they produce= more nitrates. I think my tank hovers around 100ppm and that is including once a week 15 gallon water change. I have a fluidized bed filter and an emperor 400 on the tank. The main culprits in the water "pollution" would be my 3 8 inch tinfoils, 5 4-5 inch affinis, 5 inch Red tail shark, and my 8 inches yellow spot pleco. All the other fish are smaller and have reached there potential size.

[Mattimeo]

Distichodus are NOT the largest family of tetras. They are an african species which belong to the family distochodontidae... there are MANY other characins which can outsize even the largest member of the family (lususso can get 24 inches). just a few examples are:

black and redbelly pacus
brycon sp.
salminus sp.
hydrolicus sp.
rhaphiodon sp.
hydrocynus sp.
hoplias sp.

there are quite a few more as well....

Nice pickup on the affinis... I saw 1 a while back, but held back on it as my brycon would have killed it in seconds :(

Now that I have an empty tank, I regret not buying it.

Good luck with the breeding,

Mattimeo

[ewok]

nice fish. not to my taste though..... i personally sort of prefer more colors. :)

what are the little black & white camouflaged ones in the background hiding around the pots? i think the one pic has one in a pot........

[valerie]

Those would be Yo Yo loaches

[ewok]

ah, thanks.... :D i get it now, LOL..... the only time i saw these live they were babies and had much smaller spots. :D

[JamisonBWolsh]

The yoyo's are 1 year old. If you buy them, buy more then 3!!! I bought 3 from a wholesale lfs. When I bought them, they were all the same size. HOWEVER, as the months rolled on, the 2 that you see have grown to a few inches. The other NEVER grown but stayed the same size. Not only that, he never really played around, and always seemed to be "resting". I have no clue what happened? anyone have an idea? Cant be stunted because, at the time, the tank wasnt even crowded.

ANYWAY, I really do like the fish from the family distichidus. The Affinis are a nice addition, however be warned that they do nip fins on occasion. Kind of funny though. One time an affini went after my red tail shark to nip (I was watching), this happened before and I guess the red tail suspected it cause he chased that fish for like 10 seconds.

Affinis will nip but are not aggressive at all to any fish. As I heard from other people though, various other fish from the disctidus family can hold there own against aggressive cichlids (dist. sex. as one)

[cacti]

Hi Jamison, these are my favorites type of aquaium fish, I was gone for the holidays so could not respond. Do you know how the Distichidos does with other big fish like balas, leporinus fasciatus, one oscar? Any guesses? Did we ever finally decide if the albino tinfoil was different than the golden tinfoil?:)

[JamisonBWolsh]

Yea...read the thread on albino tinfoils. I have albino tinfoils. Golden tinfoils has a golden hint of color and BLACK EYES. Mine is white and pink eyes. Dist. Affinis should do fine. They arent aggressive and most of the fin nipping stays in the group.