Flag Fish

[Sonny Disposition]

That's right--I forgot that mine ate hair algae. Badman has a nice description of them on his Web site, although I think he's mistaken on their range. (My Peterson's Field Guide only lists them as being in Penninsular Florida.)

http://badmanstropicalfish.com/profiles/profile82.html

They can be scrappy, although most of their aggression is directed at their own species. I used to keep a male and two-three females in my 65 gallon high. The tank had a thick planting of val in the background, and crypt wendtii in the foreground. They tended to be secretive. The male would hover at an opening in the val, and the females would hide.

Once, when I'd kept the females without a male, I saw a lot more of them.

I wouldn't keep them with cichlids or other fish that stake out a territory on the bottom, as the two species are liable to fight over the territory. I kept them with sailfin molllies, and Limia perugiae, which liked the top part of the water column. Mummichog will probably work well, too.

They do eat their own fry, so if you want to propagate them in any appreciable numbers, you either need to pick eggs from mops, or rotate a trio through two or three smaller, well planted tanks every couple of weeks or so. When they spawn, they frequently, and odds are, there will be eggs left behind when you move the parents.

I've never really tried to breed them in any quantity, but a couple would always manage to survive in my 65.

Wright Huntley's article has photos of both males and females.

http://www.aquarticles.com/articles/bre ... 0Fish.html


As for Cristy's success in keeping them in soft acid water, I have no explanations. I can tell you that I've never found them in that kind of habitat in nature.

[jcali10]

The one in my 20 died yesterday. My 20 is looking really healthy too since I've added pressurized CO2. There is very little algae, and the water is nice and clear, but I do overfeed my fish occasionally, which I think accounts for some Green Dust Algae on the glass from time to time.

In my 20, I have 11 different kinds of plants, 3 peppered corys, 6 H. Rasboras, quite a few Endlers, 2 otos, and 1 female cherry barb in there.

I still have 1 Flag fish in my 10G and 1 in my 50G.

I really liked that Wright Huntley link, so much interesting information there.

Thanks

[Sonny Disposition]

In addition to carbonate hardness (Cristy's fish not withstanding), they also do better with a lot of algae/vegetable matter in their diet. If you don't have much in the way of algae for them to graze on, you might need to make up for that with algae wafers.

[jcali10]

The one in my 10 gallon tank died over the weekend, but I noticed his eyes were bulging out of his head. He was swimming all eratic too; swimming around the perimeter of the tank and at the surface. He apparently got sick. He must have been stressed. The other fish, 1 white cloud minnow, a left over, 4 platys, and 1 oto are all looking healthy still.

I gonna pass on buying any more Flagfish for a while. The only other fish that I had problems with are Swordfish, which seem to be ich prone and Gouramis which chased their mates to death and died too.

I have algae wafers, the ones I drop in my 50 usually get the attention of the SAEs or Corys, even the Lemon Tetras, but not Flaggy.

[Sonny Disposition]

Well, if one fish doesn't work out for you, there are lots of others to try.