FS Ameca Splendens - Eureka CA - USPS

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Bobnova

.......
Apr 11, 2006
237
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16
$4/fish, your choice of sexes.
Shipping via USPS Priority is $8 for up to three fish, and $2 extra per fish up to $16, beyond which any number of fish costs $16.
Order six or more and the price drops to $3/fish.

These are very active fish, they spend very little time lounging around.

Adult size is 2.5-3.5" for the males and 2.5-4.5" for the females.
They like water between 65 and 75 degrees, but are fine at temps as high as 80 or 82 provided there is sufficient oxygen in the water.
A tank of at least 20long should be used, with a 40g or larger being best as they are active fish.
They prefer clean water, but are not very picky about PH or kh/gh.
They are algae and plant matter eaters in the wild, so a plantish food should be used (they love spirulina flake). This also means that they eat most types of algae they can get in their mouths, including hair algae and black fuzzy-hornish algae and cyanobacteria.
The only live plant i have seen them attempt to eat is duckweed on the surface, which they rather like. They will eat dead leaves on most plants, but not live ones.
Surface algae such as spot algae and diatoms they ignore.
Adults sometimes take offense with corys, though if they are put in with the corys while young they generally ignore them for the rest of their lives.
Aside from corys (and some other bottom dwelling fish aside from plecos) they are fairly peaceful towards others. The males chase each other around as livebearers tend to, but i have never seen any damage done.

Ameca splendens is a member of the goodeid family, which gives it a fairly interesting reproductive system.
They are livebearers, but rather then the guppy style of releasing clouds of tiny fish, goodeids have a placenta of sorts and umbilical cords.
This allows a smaller number of fish to spend substantially more time inside the mother, and by the time they are born (60-90 days) they are quite large, with the average size of the newborn fry being about .75"!
The fry keep their umbilical cords for a few minutes to an hour after being born, then they dissolve.
Typically 10-15 fry are born at a time, but there can be as few as five or as many as 30.
The fry are large enough that the adults do not eat them.


These are the best pictures i've managed (also note my avatar, that is the same male as the below picture), these are active fish and they don't sit around for the camera very often.

Male: Blue iridescent scales on the side, and the tail has a black band followed by a bright yellow band


Female: Somewhat more drab, still slightly iridescent blue.


Fry: Spotted like the females, they start to show their sex ~2"
 
Bump. Wish I had the room.
 
Are the adults sizes you have listed the sizes of the fish you are selling or is that just for reference?
 
Wish my wife would let me. ;)
 
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