New stock arrived for first calendar week 2010
And the good news is: the are considerably more favourable than last year!
It was only twice, 1998 and 2008, that we received the Semaphore Tetra by Thomas Schulz. This fish is restricted to fast running brooks in Costa Rica.
It is a spectacular tetra and luckily absolute unproblematic and peaceful. It has an internal fertalization and the female is able to store the sperms over a long period. The fish has an extreme sexual dimorphism. Females are plain blue-grey, whereas the males are particulary colorful. Only the males develope the semaphore-like long scales which are responsible for the common name. Moreover the males have longer anal and ventral fins. The females become slightly bigger (up to 55 mm total length) than the males, which stay 10-15 mm smaller. The mating rituals are very interesting to observe. During this the male presents the „semaphore scales“ widely spread. We were able to produce a little offspring from the wild collected fish which will be offered by Aquarium Glaser in very near future. The eggs are attached on substrates by the female. The sexes are distinguishable as late as when the fish are six months old. We hope that this interesting tetra will become established in the aquarium hobby now. We currently work on the F1 generation.
Text: Peter and Martin Hoffmann
Photos: Peter Hoffmann
