One of the longest known Leporinus species is L. friderici. It was already described in 1794 under the name Salmo friderici. The author, Marcus Eliser Bloch, writes: “This fish is a resident of Surinam’s waters. I received it from the present governor, the Lord of Friderici, along with several other fish. He has an excellent meat, and belongs to the tasty fish of Suriname.”
At the moment we have very nice bred ones of these up to 40 cm long tetras from Indonesia in the stock. The animals are currently 5-7 cm long. In the behavior, one can compare them best with cichlids. They form – quite rough – a ranking among themselves, why one hardly ever sees a specimen with completely undamaged fins. However, these injuries are harmless. If they feel threatened, however, they join together immediately to a dense swarm. One can characterize these tetras therefore best as social fish, who estimate the society of conspecifics, but doesn’t treat them necessarily peacefully.
In nature Leporinus feed mainly on fruits, seeds and insects, in the aquarium they reliably destroy all plants. They are ideal fish in large aquariums with silver dollars, large cichlids, catfish, etc.
For our customers: the animals have code 265923 on our stocklist. Please note that we only supply the wholesale trade.
Text & photos: Frank Schäfer
