Pencil fish

[Solstice_Lacer]

Anyone keep them? I don't know a ton about pencil fish other than they like to hang out peacefully together looking up at the surface a lot of the time. 

I watched Cory's video about them saying they need tiny food and appreciate live food. 

I was thinking they might like hanging out in my tall 25 with some shrimp without harassing them too much. They would be the only fish in that case. My tanks tend to produce micro fauna since they are shrimp only at the moment.

I'm not sure how demanding of temperature they are though. I've seen differing numbers

[Colu]

What species of pencil fish were you thinking of keeping

[Nick Y]

I recently got some red beckfordi pencilfish and love them.   They are exactly as described.   Very neat, peaceful schooling fish.   I’ve fed them fluval bug bits and the extreme nano and they’ve eaten that.  I also fed them frozen daphnia.    They’re really neat fish!

[Solstice_Lacer]

On 10/5/2021 at 8:39 PM, Colu said:

What species of pencil fish were you thinking of keeping

Idk what my lfs has if anything, so probably whatever the most common affordable type is

[Flumpweesel]

On 10/6/2021 at 1:43 AM, Nick Y said:

I recently got some red beckfordi pencilfish and love them.   They are exactly as described.   Very neat, peaceful schooling fish.   I’ve fed them fluval bug bits and the extreme nano and they’ve eaten that.  I also fed them frozen daphnia.    They’re really neat fish!

Do they really hang out in the top third ? Always feels like wasted space in my tank. Never seen them for sale at LFS but i've only really been looking for them recently. 

[Solstice_Lacer]

I think brown pencil fish (Nannostomus eques) are the most common type to exhibit the "hanging near the surface at an angle" behavior. Those are probably the ones I would go for if I can find them. I find them very interesting

[Nick Y]

On 10/6/2021 at 3:24 AM, Flumpweesel said:

Do they really hang out in the top third ? Always feels like wasted space in my tank. Never seen them for sale at LFS but i've only really been looking for them recently. 

Mine are still in a 10 gallon quarantine.  Because of the tank size it’s not very deep so I can’t say for sure regarding where they hang. In the 10 gallon they roam at all levels and tend to hang out in the plants and have eaten off the bottom.  In a deeper tank I’m not sure what they will do.  They’re really neat fish though.  Love the red beckfordi.  Their “sleep” pattern is also really neat.