Pseudomugil gertrudae anyone have these?

[Guppysnail]

I seen a Pseudomugil furcatus at my lfs today and fell real head over heals in a serious way. I came home and started researching them and fell even more in love with the Pseudomugil gertrudae.  I have a 20L girl guppy grow out I can convert in the spring possibly.  It would be better for me if they could cohabitate with guppy fry but if they eat them I can keep the community tank as the grow out. However I fear my community being overrun so weirdly would not be devastated if they did eat them as a fail safe to overpopulation (I have nothing else that eats them including other guppies rarely eat them or should I say enough of them. Would the guppies growing out stress them as the guppies get bigger?

Any experience with these is appreciated before I really get my head set on slowly converting this tank. Thanks for your help. 

Edited October 23, 2021 by Guppysnail

[GameCzar]

Adorable fish!  How big do they get?

[Guppysnail]

1.5 inches average. Top-midwater. Adaptable to almost any parameter. And ADORABLE 😍. I rarely find a fish my heart goes putter patter for. This is one 

They only live 18 months but spawn daily so continuous colony

[Schwack]

I kept both furcatus and gertrudae together for several months... Until I ran into camallanus worms. Like you said, super tough little guys. I lost most of my group to the worms, but I've since replaced the furcatus as I find their color stands out a bit better. I'll likely pick up a few gertrudae when I trade in some of the babies from this group. My largest male is well over two inches... He's a behemoth compared to his tank mates and bullies the other boys accordingly. 

They're a bit trickier to spawn than you might think. They'll lay eggs and such all day, but hatching them has been a bit difficult in my water. I spoke with a guy from Australia who had attended some conservation breeding talks and it was passed on to him that they spawn best in soft water. My experience with very hard water is that I get a lot of unfertilized eggs, but that's really not the end of the world. I'm sitting on 20ish fry at the moment, and I'll probably breed them again once this group is ready to leave my baby tank.

If you're interested in rainbow fish, the definitive guide to the species can be found here:

https://www.rainbowfish.angfaqld.org.au/Book.htm

Edited October 23, 2021 by Schwack

[Guppysnail]

On 10/22/2021 at 11:50 PM, Schwack said:

I kept both furcatus and gertrudae together for several months... Until I ran into camallanus worms. Like you said, super tough little guys. I lost most of my group to the worms, but I've since replaced the furcatus as I find their color stands out a bit better. I'll likely pick up a few gertrudae when I trade in some of the babies from this group. They're a bit trickier to spawn than you might think. They'll lay eggs and such all day, but hatching them has been a bit difficult in my water. I spoke with a guy from Australia who had attended some conservation breeding talks and it was passed on to him that they spawn best in soft water. My experience with very hard water is that I get a lot of unfertilized eggs, but that's really not the end of the world. I'm sitting on 20ish fry at the moment, and I'll probably breed them again once this group is ready to leave my baby tank.

If you're interested in rainbow fish, the definitive guide to the species can be found here:

https://www.rainbowfish.angfaqld.org.au/Book.htm

That’s awesome! Thanks. I’m super hard from my outside hose I use on my tanks right now but can use my inside faucet which is run through a softner mixed in if they don’t have good hatch rates. I have no issues hatching my CPD so I hope I can make it work. Until today I didn’t think I had an insert in them. Seeing the pectoral fins in action on the furcatus today just did something for me. 

[eatyourpeas]

Beautiful little fish! No wonder you went head over heels! 😍

[Schwack]

When the males color up and start flaring at each other it's quite a show.

I went into breeding them with cpds as my only experience and have definitely struggled a bit. I could turn out batches of 50 cpd fry every few weeks, but not these guys. I'm hoping the second generation will be more tolerant of my water, but not holding my breath. As it was explained to me, the harder water causes the exterior of the egg to harden faster, resulting in more failed fertilizing. I was also unaware that they don't go through a sucker phase, it seems as though they leave the egg free swimming.

[Guppysnail]

On 10/23/2021 at 12:00 AM, Schwack said:

When the males color up and start flaring at each other it's quite a show.

I went into breeding them with cpds as my only experience and have definitely struggled a bit. I could turn out batches of 50 cpd fry every few weeks, but not these guys. I'm hoping the second generation will be more tolerant of my water, but not holding my breath. As it was explained to me, the harder water causes the exterior of the egg to harden faster, resulting in more failed fertilizing. I was also unaware that they don't go through a sucker phase, it seems as though they leave the egg free swimming.

I wonder if I could pull the eggs and place into a my hatch tank with total soft water and slowly start adding harder water just before hatch then transition to my tank water as they grow out?

[Schwack]

On 10/22/2021 at 9:04 PM, Guppysnail said:

I wonder if I could pull the eggs and place into a my hatch tank with total soft water and slowly start adding harder water just before hatch then transition to my tank water as they grow out?

I asked the same question!

I was told the important time is the moment they're laid. So you could move your adults to soft water, let them fill a mop and then move them all back to more typical water post hatch.

[Guppysnail]

On 10/23/2021 at 12:05 AM, Schwack said:

I asked the same question!

I was told the important time is the moment they're laid. So you could move your adults to soft water, let them fill a mop and then move them all back to more typical water post hatch.

Hmmm.  I might just run a soft water tank then in a 10 instead of using the girl grow out and let all my guppies of both sexes grow out together for the lfs. My hatch tank is right beside my 10 boy guppy grow out. I can’t believe I’m this enchanted with these little fish. 

[laritheloud]

I keep pseudomugil signifers and they're hardy, fun, super active fish. They school extremely well. I do find they are skittish and take a long time to settle in a tank. I've had mine for ... a month and a half? Two months? They've been through antibiotics (for white lip) and a few rounds of parasite treatments just in case, and all of them made it through just fine.

Things to keep in mind about pseudomugils:

White lip is VERY common, and so is columnaris. When you first get them you might see white lip. I held back on treatment until I noticed it wasn't improving with clean water changes, then gave them medicated feed (kanaplex) for 10 days. They still have somewhat white-tinted, callused lips, but none of them ever refused food, and none of them act sick. I'd err on the conservative side with antibiotic treatment for them and see if their white lip is just from their frequent sparring or if it's something more. Usually it's really not a big deal as you might think with other fish!

Give them time to get comfortable. Mine snapped to schooling formation at the top of the tank whenever I came to take a look for over a month before they decided they were okay with me.

You'll probably feel better with a nice lid on the aquarium, as when they say top-dwellers, they *REALLY* hang out by the surface!

They prefer to eat from the top of the water. When they swim down it's to explore, play, spar, or breed.

I think you'll really like them. They might not live very long, but they're just so fun and completely peaceful and they never stop moving. I have gouramis in with them now, and I was super nervous the gouramis would put them back to max skittishness but they absolutely don't mind having bigger fish around at all. Love them!

[Guppysnail]

On 10/23/2021 at 11:47 AM, laritheloud said:

I keep pseudomugil signifers and they're hardy, fun, super active fish. They school extremely well. I do find they are skittish and take a long time to settle in a tank. I've had mine for ... a month and a half? Two months? They've been through antibiotics (for white lip) and a few rounds of parasite treatments just in case, and all of them made it through just fine.

Things to keep in mind about pseudomugils:

White lip is VERY common, and so is columnaris. When you first get them you might see white lip. I held back on treatment until I noticed it wasn't improving with clean water changes, then gave them medicated feed (kanaplex) for 10 days. They still have somewhat white-tinted, callused lips, but none of them ever refused food, and none of them act sick. I'd err on the conservative side with antibiotic treatment for them and see if their white lip is just from their frequent sparring or if it's something more. Usually it's really not a big deal as you might think with other fish!

Give them time to get comfortable. Mine snapped to schooling formation at the top of the tank whenever I came to take a look for over a month before they decided they were okay with me.

You'll probably feel better with a nice lid on the aquarium, as when they say top-dwellers, they *REALLY* hang out by the surface!

They prefer to eat from the top of the water. When they swim down it's to explore, play, spar, or breed.

I think you'll really like them. They might not live very long, but they're just so fun and completely peaceful and they never stop moving. I have gouramis in with them now, and I was super nervous the gouramis would put them back to max skittishness but they absolutely don't mind having bigger fish around at all. Love them!

Thank you for this it is super valuable to me. I normally do not medicate in qt unless they give me cause. And ALWAYS med guppies. So I will definitely run them through trio since it is common. I have glass lids with no escape route because of all my snails. I read they were potentially jumpers. I’m hoping to hatch them like my CPD to have a continuous colony. Hopefully that will make up for their short lifespan. 

[laritheloud]

On 10/23/2021 at 11:53 AM, Guppysnail said:

Thank you for this it is super valuable to me. I normally do not medicate in qt unless they give me cause. And ALWAYS med guppies. So I will definitely run them through trio since it is common. I have glass lids with no escape route because of all my snails. I read they were potentially jumpers. I’m hoping to hatch them like my CPD to have a continuous colony. Hopefully that will make up for their short lifespan. 

https://streamable.com/y57jho these are my thicklips and pseudomugils in my tank right now, if you're interested. That upper right corner is their 'safe schooling spot' but they look pretty relaxed right now (don't mind the gross staghorn growing on the equipment, I'm going to scrub what I can out of there when I do my maintenance this evening)