**Video**Atromaculatum and Ornatus added to Festae tank

Here's a video of the new fish added to the Festae tank. To get everyone up to speed, I bought a male and female F0 each of atromaculatus and ornatum imported from Columbia. I added them to my 265g tank with a well established pair of Festae. I removed all the non-S American fish except one single Filament barb.

Inhabitants-

Male and Female Festae
Male and female Atromaculatus
Male and female Ornatus
Tigrunus catfish
5 spotted silver dollars
Bristlenose plec
(female filament barb, the male was killed)
Thinking of adding a small pair of GT's and taking out the filament barb.

Here's where I'm at on the changeover so far. The atromac's are sooooooo much cooler than you can see in the video. They just might be my new favorite fish. The ornatus have some growing to do but they're going to be really cool too. I love wild caught fish for their teeth. Even the baby ornatus have nice choppers. The atro's have nice sharp red teeth.

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we4wieners;4298813; said:

How do you sex the filament barbs? I have 4 of 'em and really like them. They add alot to the tank with geo's, king kong parrots, senegal bichirs, and 12" clown knife. Just wondering, can they breed?

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Males will have a lot more red coloration when mature and a longer, more feathered dorsal fin. Females are plainer looking and yes, mine have bred a few times. If you see them doing thousands of circles at a million miles an hour, they are going to mate.

Davey_8313;4298814; said:

The fish and the tank looks great man. Everything seem like they're getting along?

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Thanks, everyone is getting along great. I'm about to add the GT's if I can get up off my caboose.

Sarah88;4298934; said:

SWEET!!! they look amazing Balton, def nice pick ups cant wait to see these guys as they grow, what are the max sizes of them? and i think a GT pair would be cool in there and would be awesome to have all those nice South American pairs in there. where did you get those spotted silver dollars from? i don't really care for the regular ones but love the spotted and striped ones but can never find them anywhere. and i really love that your festae pair are calm enough to be able to have other pairs in their with them

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Funny thing is, I don't know their max sizes or if they're carnivores or omnivores or much else for that matter. What do they eat in their native habitat? Snails? Crustaceans? Fish? And are they quick growers? I dunno.

I got the spotted silvers from my lfs, I like them because they don't grow too big and look great when the color up. They get them in every now and then. The Festae don't really look twice at the other fish, and they've been digging a pit so I'm hoping for some lil fry and there should be plenty of room if they spawn.

Sarah88;4299068; said:

oh ok yeah your lucky all we get in here are the regular silver dollars and the larger ones are always chewed up half to death from being crammed in together into one of their small tanks. i love those spotted and striped ones though because like you said they dont get as big and they look a lot better IMO. but yeah sounds like you have some researching to do haha GOOD LUCK with the new spawn, hopefully the festae continue to stay civil when they breed again

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Lol researching to do? I've looked but there's nothing much documented that I can find. These fish are so rare, hardly anyone has experience with them.

I already had to take the GT's back out. The Atro's didn't want them in the tank. It was amazing how they teamed up with coordinated strikes. They can obviously be vicious killers when the want to be, the GT's would have been dead in minutes. Wow, it was quite a show but now that I removed the GT's, they're just as calm as can be again. Hope they stay that way.