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X-ray Fish
In the wild X-ray fish - Pristella maxillaris, originate from Brazil around the Amazon region, I prefer to obtain captive bred specimens as it helps maintain the wild stocks of fish in the region.
I keep these in my community tank and have done for a few years now.
The temperature I keep them at is 26C, filtration is an internal power filter,I also have a 12" airstone buried under the gravel to make a gentle air effect, the tank is heavily planted with live plants which I feed using Seachem Flourish once a week and I also add Seachem Flourish Excel daily to increase CO2, the plants help with natural filtration as well as giving the natural environment and look to the aquarium , gravel is standard natural river gravel, I also have some mopani wood and some bogwood, the rocks are lava rock and natural slate.
I feed them flake food daily and high protein granular once a week.
The X-ray fish like to rest and swim in the middle of the tank depth and also in the lower region of the middle level but not on the bottom of the tank.They especially like to rest between plants, they appear to use the individual plants to mark out their boundaries of where they like to be in the tank, in the case of mine this is exactly in the centre of the length and width of the tank and a small amount either side of this, so they are highly viewable fish.
They are amazing fish to watch, have a really graceful movement, you can quite easily get drawn into their world when watching them and spend lots of time observing their interactions which are subtle but noticeable, complex yet simple.
They have delicate highlights of colour (yellow, black, white) on the fins, and red/brown on the tail, from their swimbladder towards their tail is transparent, also to an extent above the swimbladder towards their tail is also transparent , this is why they have the common name of X-ray fish.
There is now an almost entirely yellow strain available.
I recommend keeping a group of these adorable fish in a peaceful community tank.
I have not bred these as yet but they are certainly a species I will try to breed at some stage in the future.
The females are more rounded than the males, which are more slender, you can spot the differences when looking at the lower line of the body and swimbladder shape, which is made easier due to the transparency surrounding the swimbladder highlighting its shape.
I have a pair as I can see from the group they have bonded, this is how you will know when you have a pair that are compatible, they interact in the group but the pair interact more often with subtle movements watched by each other and they don't go too far from each other when resting.
They are an egg laying fish.
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