lol, i got a half beak haha!

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C

Capo

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Aug 31, 2005
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Adelaide, Australia
Ok, well i did a silly thing today....well not quite that silly lol, im sure most of you would understand why i did it.
I went to my LFS and while buying feeders, i found a little half beak in a tank of mollies and guppies. I couldn't help myself....so i got him!
he's tiny, not even 1" and i dont think the shop fed him very well because he's really thin. Hes also not very energetic, so i hope that with enough feeding, and some TLC he should start to fatten up.
OK, well i know hes no monster, and never will be haha, but has anyone ever kept them and have any info to tell me and other half beak keepers.
Im just stoked i found this guy, hes pretty cool. Am i right to beleive that they only get to a maximum of 3"? How long will it take him to grow to this size?
i havefed him 1 blood worm so far, ill see how flakes go!
 
my lfs has some small halfbeaks too. I would be interested in anything anybody had to offer as well.
 
Halfbeaks get up to about 2-3"and can live in brackish or fresh water. but even in fresh you should add some salt. They will feed on flakes or frozen food but prefer small live insects. You should keep the tank planted with some cover and maybe put black paper on the sides and back to discourage fast swimming that may damage their "beak".
 
Cool, my fish is starting to recover. Hes eating some flakes i have.
He is so skinny though, and he is kinda scared of all the little tetras i have (silver tip, serpae) but yeah it looks as if hes getting stronger. Ill try get pics....if the camera lens even focuses on him lol.
 
i used to have one, i liked him very much. you basicaly know everything already. shy 3 inch fish, very peaceful and eats anything on the surface.
 
Which type of halfbeak? There are 121 species, about halh live in brackishish water, a few are true freshwater. They range from 2 1/2" to 24".
The ones most often sold as pets are the live bearing Demogenys pusilla (Malaysian/wrestling halfbeak) that gets to 2 1/2" max as males and a little bigger as females. they like lightly brackish water, a tank with 2 teaspoons salt per gallon like for treating ick will do but they do best with even more. They are one of the first "exotic" fish that I kept, they were in a 20g tank with a specific gravity of 1.012 along with a banded pipe fish and a couple mollies. There were 6 females and 3 males. The males often beakwrestled but none was ever injured that way.
They shredded a couple guppies so I stopped putting them in that tank. They also ate the mollies fry and their own. They eat flakes and love tubifex worms from a surface feeder as well as small crickets, ants, termites, and brine shrimp. I had several clumps of a plant that people called pickle weed in the tank, unfortunately I don't know what that plant really is.

Dermogenys_pusilla_1.jpg
 
Ive seen them a few times in LFS near me.

Usually in the smaller shops too.
 
Ive kept them in my planted tank before. Not difficult to keep and they loved the freeze dried bloodworms i fed. But i didnt know there were so many species of it :WHOA:
 
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