algae eater - Ameca splendens

[illumbomb]

Hi,

Anyone heard of this fish before? Any idea whether it can be bought in Singapore? If yes, from where? Thanks.

[illumbomb]

a pic of the fish

[stormhawk]

it's a goodeid. a livebearer. i think it's called the butterfly goodeid. u won't see it for sale here in SG. well.. so far not yet. [:]

[illumbomb]

a pity, i bought some platys instead and saw them nibbling at some algae..... but guppys, although are similarly livebearers, don't seem to be active in eating them

[Allen_1971]

Hehehe... I've been looking for this baby for years... either I'm the blurrest hobbyist ever, or it ain't found here... your other options would be platys, mollies, rosy barbs.

[loupgarou]

american flag fish would also be nice to find.

[AirStern]

i also have been looking for ameca splendens for a long long time liao ... sigh, why wont they just bring it in?

american flag fish tends to grow very fast and very greedy also, can be very aggressive leh ...

[Allen_1971]

one problem with bringing in ameca splendans is that it is near endangered in the wild... perhaps its a legal issue?

[illumbomb]

Do you all think that these platys are better algae eaters than SAEs for certain type of algaes?

[Allen_1971]

the key here is in your last statement... certain algae eaters prefer certain algae... thats why its good to get an assortment... for example, yamato, malayan, otos, and SAE all don't touch filamentous hair algae, while the ameca splendans does... similarly, Otos take brown algae, SAE BBA... etc... Not sure how platys do.

[edinjapan]

Hehehe... I've been looking for this baby for years... either I'm the blurrest hobbyist ever, or it ain't found here... your other options would be platys, mollies, rosy barbs.

Not so blur. Only a specialty fish like killies.

I have Ameca, Xenophophorus, Xenotoca and other goodieds. Very slow to reproduce-gestation from 3-4 months, they love greens like algae, leave shrimp alone, females get very big and have large well developed fry that are born with an umbilical cord attached. They come from mountains and high plateaus of Mexico, Central America and Venezuala, so, need cooler temps to do well. I leave mine out in the winter here in Tokyo and they do well.