Video: Star-shaped Fundulus (Fundulus Dispar)
2024 Author: Molly Page | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:30
The star-shaped fundulus, or bluish-spotted diaperon, is a small fish that lives in freshwater bodies of North America. Lives up to two years. It is aggressive and must be kept separate from other fish species. A couple will need an aquarium with a volume of 30 liters or more. Eats both animal and vegetable feed. Spawning is prolonged.
Photo © Brian Zimmerman
Distribution: North America (Michigan, Mississippi; Texas, Alabama, Louisiana).
Habitat: freshwater shallow bodies of water with clean water and a quiet current (lakes, floodplains, swamps) with an abundance of aquatic vegetation and soft soil.
Description: The stellate fundulus has a large teardrop-shaped black spot below the back of the eye. The teeth are small. The mustache is missing. The body is relatively deep, slightly compressed laterally, the top of the head is flat.
The dorsal fin has 6-8 rays, the anal ones 9-11, the pectorals 11-12. The tail is rounded. The dorsal fin is shifted far back, farther than the anal. Females are larger than males.
Color: the upper back is olive, the closer to the belly - the lighter the color, whitish belly. The fins are lightly pigmented or transparent, sometimes with faint stripes or spots at the base on the dorsal, anal and caudal fins. There is a row of reddish-brown dots on both sides of the upper back.
In adult males there are 3-13 thin reddish-brown horizontal stripes on the sides, in females they are absent, but horizontal stripes are present. The paired fins of males are slightly yellowish, and the spots on the body are brown-rusty, in females the spots are green-brown.
Before breeding season, males develop tiny nuptial tubercles on their dorsal and anal fins.
Size: 4.7-5.5 cm.
Life expectancy: up to 2 years.
Aquarium:
Sizes: for a couple from 30 liters.
Water: pH 5.8-7.2, dH 1-15 °, some aquarists recommend adding salt (1 tsp for 4 liters of water).
Lighting: diffused and dim. If you like bright lighting, then part of the aquarium should definitely remain in the twilight.
Light mode: 2 pm and 10 am.
Temperature: in nature, star-shaped hazelnuts live in water with T 22-26 ° C. It can tolerate a decrease to 18 ° C, but the fish become lethargic.
Plants: thickets of living plants, including floating ones.
Decoration: various shelters, grottoes and driftwood.
Photo © Konrad Schmidt
Feeding: in nature, fundulus eat terrestrial, flying and aquatic insects (dipterans, larvae of midges and stoneflies, nymphs of dragonflies and mayflies), molluscs (snails), crustaceans (water mites Hydrachnida, chironomids, ostracods, copepods and amphipods) and aquatic vegetation and amphipods (seaweed). The food is taken from the surface of the water.
Behavior: a daytime fish that does well both singly and as a pair.
Personality: aggressive towards other fish species.
Water zone: upper layer of water.
Related article Olive Fundulus (Fundulus olivaceus)
Fish breeding: seasonal, begins in nature in summer (June-July), in dense thickets of aquatic plants. Spawning is prolonged.
Sexual differences: the female is colored paler.
Puberty: about a year, with a length of 2.6 cm.
Spawning aquarium: pH 6.2, water temperature 22-28 ° C.
Male to female ratio: 1: 2.
Number of eggs: 7-30 transparent spherical (1.95 mm in diameter) sticky eggs. Diameter of eggs with fully developed larvae is about 2.74 mm.
Incubation: 9-11 days at T 25 ° C.
Offspring: Newborn larvae reach a length of 6.1 mm.
Growth rate: slow.
Feeding juveniles: Artemia nauplii, live dust, midge larvae, ostracods and copepods (daphnia, cyclops, etc.).
Jigging from parents: after spawning, eggs are harvested.
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