Something New - Xenoteca eisseni
By Michael McKinney
from The Underwater News, Pioneer Valley Aquarium Society, December 2003
Aquarticles
Right now all you readers that are familiar with Xenoteca eisseni are asking
yourselves "What is new about Xenoteca eisseni?" Well for those you
familiar with this species of goodeid, there is nothing new. But for me, Xenoteca
eisseni is drastically new. See I am a cichlid bigot and, outside of the required
catfish and plecos, Xenoteca eisseni is the first non-cichlid to be in my fish
room in over a dozen years. I am one of those fish keepers that always maintained in my
mind that there are two types of fish…. cichlids and feeders. Well at this year's
PVAS annual auction I decided I was going to try to purchase something new. Having scoured
the tables and all the entries I decided I wanted to leave the auction that day with three
bags of fish; a bag of Ameca splendens, a bag of Crenicichla regani, and
a bag of Xenoteca eisseni. Well I was successful in getting two out of the three
as I somehow missed the bidding on the one bag of Ameca splendens.
The bag of Xenoteca eisseni was entered into our auction by Rit Forcier, a
well known hobbyist in the livebearer community as well as our club. Rit, you may recall,
has given a couple dynamite talks at our club meetings over the past year. This particular
bag of Xenoteca eisseni contained eight fish, four males and four females. I had
decided I wanted this fish at the auction based purely on the look of the males. Bright
orange caudal peduncle and tail fin, bright blue patch forward of the caudal peduncle and
including the dorsal fin (which is located more toward the rear of this fish), and a
spangling of black and tan over the rest of the body. The male also has a body shape that
I can best describe by saying it appears that the fish has a hunch back. The females are
much less colorful, basically tan throughout the body. They lack the 'hunch back' feature
of the male and as a result are a little shorter then the males. However my females are
all a little longer than the males.
I placed my group in a 20-gallon tank, which is also occupied by a trio of albino
Bushynose Ancistrus and a small group of Corydoras hastatus. The tank
also contains one small clay ceramic spawning cave and two pieces of slated that are
leaning on the cave. There is also a very large growth of java moss, which spreads out
over roughly 75% of the area in the tank. The tank is filtered by two sponge filters,
driven by an air blower which drives the sponge filters in all my 40 tanks. There is no
substrate. The temperature of the tank ranges from 76 - 80 degrees, the pH is around 8.0,
and 30% water changes are done every 5 to 6 days. The fish are fed a varied diet of
cichlid/spirulina flake, frozen brine shrimp, frozen bloodworms, and crushed freeze-dried
krill.
The fish settled right into this environment and it was not long before you could
easily tell that the females were ripe with young. Xenoteca eisseni is a
livebearer. Before long I had all four females drop young. But after about a month the
eight adults slowly killed off all the young. Actually got back to the point where there
was no young at all before any spawning occurred again. I have not had this happen again
since, and I currently have 3 - 4 dozen young of various ages and sizes swimming amongst
the java moss. For whatever reason the adults have not killed any young since the first
'slaughter', well at least that I know of. The young pick at the food intended for the
adults, but also are fed baby brine and white worms, which they eagerly attack. The tank
is quite active and, to my amazement, is currently one of my favorites to watch, even
though it does not contain a single cichlid.
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