Need help to ID this fish

[redsuns]

Hi guys,

Need your help to ID this fish, the one with the pointy mouth.

Thanks in advance!

[stormhawk]

What I can tell you is that this is a halfbeak. Which one, I'm not sure. Need a clearer picture to get a better idea what it is.

[Shingen]

the one on the left is halfbeak and the one on the right is killifish

[Trichopsis]

It's certainly one of the Sulawesi halfbeaks (Nomorhamphus), no idea which species though.

[redsuns]

Hi guys! Thanks for the replies! I think this is the Celebes Halfbeak (Nomorhamphus liemi) , closest resemblance according to photos and your inputs too.

Any idea where can I get them? Alot of places do not have them, asked Y618, otf at pasir ris farmway, aqua empire, did not see them at seaview too.

[stormhawk]

I haven't seen Nomorhamphus at the stores for some time. I did spot some Dermogenys pusilla (I think) at Clementi and Hong Yang at CCK Central. If you're keen on halfbeaks, you can try that dwarf species. At C328, they're normally in the buckets along the right hand side of the shop, on the floor.

[redsuns]

Thanks for the information for stormhawk! Appreciate that, would go down and take a look, hopefully they have some left! Nomorhamphus seems to be "out of stock", a few lfs I asked said it has been a long time since they are in.

[stormhawk]

We seldom see halfbeaks because the demand is low and people don't expect these to be killers of smaller fishes. They are interesting livebearers though. The small Dermogenys are usually skinny, so you might have to work on feeding them with live foods etc to get them to bulk up. If you can find fruit flies, these would be perfect for them.

[redsuns]

Yeah, the auntie did told me that it will "poke" and disturb other smaller fishes, they are also prone to injuring their lower beak (hitting against the glass tank) and dislocating their jaw which leads to death as they can't feed.

Thanks for the tip! Fruit flies would be a challenge, hmmmmm......

[Trichopsis]

Off-topic, but sometimes you'll have people selling cultures of wingless strains of fruit flies in the Marketplace.

I've been raising fruit flies on an irregular basis for quite some time. It basically involves putting a moistened slice of bread and a few chunks of banana in a container that's left in the open. After a couple of days, you'll get fruit flies visiting this mixture. Then it's a matter of placing a cap, preferably one with holes covered in some sort of fine mesh to prevent the maggots from crawling out or adult flies from escaping while allowing exchange of air, and letting the flies breed in that mix. The banana-bread mix does get mouldy and looks disgusting after a while, but most of the time it doesn't smell very bad unless you actually place your nose over the open container and inhale deeply.

Feeding: you can open the cap and use fine forceps to pick out some of the tiny maggots; you can then give the maggots a quick dunking in water before feeding them to the fish. The maggots sink immediately, but squirm quite actively on their way down. Most small fish would notice them. The downside is that all your adult flies will escape once you open the cap. Never mind; there should be enough maggots remaining to mature, pupate and metamorphose into adult flies and continue the culture.

Alternatively, you can place the entire container in the fridge for a few minutes - this should chill and slow down the adults, making it easier to catch them. I haven't tried this yet though.

If the culture medium gets too mouldy, really starts to stink (rather than just smelling of overripe bananas and mouldy bread), or production of maggots crashes, just throw out the mix and start a new batch.

As an aside, I noticed that Polyart is selling really tiny crickets, the largest at just 2cm in length. I think these could be suitable as live food for small fishes.