GaryofMontreal
Jul 6th 2010, 04:48 PM
There was a request for an article on these guys, and since it’s 33 degrees (humidex 41) and I ain’t going too far, I wrote up a quick one for the CAC.
Scriptaphyosemion guignardi
2248
text and photos by Gary Elson
When I was very little, my grandmother had heavy drapes in the room she called the parlour. They were green, red, burgundy, blue and turquoise, and I hated them. Fashions shifted, and she redecorated. The room filled with light, the parlour evolved into a family room with an aquarium in the corner, and I forgot about the dark ages. That is, until those richly patterned curtains swam by me one day, as I was looking into my friend Yves’ 40 gallon tank.
The living version of the curtains was Scriptaphyosemion guignardi (Romand 1981), and this time, I REALLY liked them. Yves gave a pair, and I kept them for a few years. You don’t learn much about a fish by keeping it for one lifespan, and since they weren’t too hard to breed, I had them for a few generations.
2250
The fish originates from central Guinea and Senegal, from small, warm plant-filled streams, swamps and brooks. My limited experience of northern African killies tells me they like a heated tank, and keeping them showed them to be more able to handle themselves in heavy traffic than most shy southern Aphyosemions. Yves had his in a community tank, and mine always prospered in such conditions. They lived for several years, and I got to enjoy grandparents, parents and kids all swimming together.
They bred easily, especially when neglected in single species tanks. They were never cannibalistic. When I picked eggs out of mops, they took a little more than two weeks to hatch, and fertility was never a problem. The eggs were small, as were the fry, but feeding them was no problem with freshly hatched artemia or powdered flake. I always raised them in heavily planted tanks, and never established whether they ate artemia from the outset, or fed on micro-organisms in the tank and ignored my attempts to care for them.
I stopped keeping them as my old fishroom was too cold for them to breed at any time but dead summer. They really like their water above 22, and I don’t heat my killie tanks.
I recently got them again, this time labelled as the “Sougeta” population (research shows this to be a careless spelling of Sougoueta, in Guinea). I’ve had them in with Xiphophorus helleri from Belize, and they have more than held their own. They haven’t bred in the heavily planted, heavy current tank, but I expect that’s due to the hungry young helleri they have never hunted for (but who have hunted the guignardi young). Nice families in the fish world get their kids eaten by the neighbour’s kids they leave alone, I suppose.
2249
The populations do vary in colours. This one is not as intense as the first one I had, although they have a lot more blue green than the accompanying photos show. Males have all the colour, while females are mousy brown.
Scriptaphyosemion guignardi is an attractive killie, although not with the electric shades of its southerly cousins. It’s a 2-3 inch fish that prospers in peaceful communities, and would be an ideal starter killie for any aquarist looking for something curious and different.
Sources: http://www.killifish.f9.co.uk/West_African_Killifish/Ref_Library/Scriptaphyosemion/S.guignardi.htm
Scriptaphyosemion guignardi
2248
text and photos by Gary Elson
When I was very little, my grandmother had heavy drapes in the room she called the parlour. They were green, red, burgundy, blue and turquoise, and I hated them. Fashions shifted, and she redecorated. The room filled with light, the parlour evolved into a family room with an aquarium in the corner, and I forgot about the dark ages. That is, until those richly patterned curtains swam by me one day, as I was looking into my friend Yves’ 40 gallon tank.
The living version of the curtains was Scriptaphyosemion guignardi (Romand 1981), and this time, I REALLY liked them. Yves gave a pair, and I kept them for a few years. You don’t learn much about a fish by keeping it for one lifespan, and since they weren’t too hard to breed, I had them for a few generations.
2250
The fish originates from central Guinea and Senegal, from small, warm plant-filled streams, swamps and brooks. My limited experience of northern African killies tells me they like a heated tank, and keeping them showed them to be more able to handle themselves in heavy traffic than most shy southern Aphyosemions. Yves had his in a community tank, and mine always prospered in such conditions. They lived for several years, and I got to enjoy grandparents, parents and kids all swimming together.
They bred easily, especially when neglected in single species tanks. They were never cannibalistic. When I picked eggs out of mops, they took a little more than two weeks to hatch, and fertility was never a problem. The eggs were small, as were the fry, but feeding them was no problem with freshly hatched artemia or powdered flake. I always raised them in heavily planted tanks, and never established whether they ate artemia from the outset, or fed on micro-organisms in the tank and ignored my attempts to care for them.
I stopped keeping them as my old fishroom was too cold for them to breed at any time but dead summer. They really like their water above 22, and I don’t heat my killie tanks.
I recently got them again, this time labelled as the “Sougeta” population (research shows this to be a careless spelling of Sougoueta, in Guinea). I’ve had them in with Xiphophorus helleri from Belize, and they have more than held their own. They haven’t bred in the heavily planted, heavy current tank, but I expect that’s due to the hungry young helleri they have never hunted for (but who have hunted the guignardi young). Nice families in the fish world get their kids eaten by the neighbour’s kids they leave alone, I suppose.
2249
The populations do vary in colours. This one is not as intense as the first one I had, although they have a lot more blue green than the accompanying photos show. Males have all the colour, while females are mousy brown.
Scriptaphyosemion guignardi is an attractive killie, although not with the electric shades of its southerly cousins. It’s a 2-3 inch fish that prospers in peaceful communities, and would be an ideal starter killie for any aquarist looking for something curious and different.
Sources: http://www.killifish.f9.co.uk/West_African_Killifish/Ref_Library/Scriptaphyosemion/S.guignardi.htm