Hello fellow livebearer lovers! I need some help with identifying the proper scientific name for some platinum halfbeaks I bought over the weekend. I haven't posted a picture because they are the platinum color without a doubt. I bought all five the LFS had and was blessed to get 2 boys and 3 girls!!!
I always have used the species name Dermogenys siamensis for platinum halfbeaks. However, you might also have D. pusilla, D. vivipara or something similar. They are all silver looking fish and look pretty close to each other.
If you get fry you will need to pull them right away and put them in their own tank.
The photo is from my fry tank in 2010, You get one batch and then 2 weeks latter you should get a second batch with fry being droped in the evening.
Hello, I too purchased some "Silver Halfbeaks" last week in the Chicago area. I have a group of 6 of which at least 3 are definitely males. They do appear to be Dermogenys siamensis. They are eagerly eating live blackworms and live brine shrimp as well as crushed flake, frozen brine and daphnia. The males do occasionally squabble but no harm seems to come of it. I did have to remove 4 guppies from the 20 gal long as the halfbeaks had them pressed up in the corner and they would not come out to eat. I'm thinking about maintaining them in a community 55 gal. and just removing gravid females as they become ready to deliver.
i have a pair of halfbeaks that had fry a few weeks ago. the adults eat flakes, frozen and live worms, but the babies are way more picky. i've tried smashed flakes, which they eat for only so long as they float, fry food, which does not interest them, and frozen brine shrimp, which also don't interest them. i had 22, and after 2 weeks, i still had 21. all of a sudden they started to drop dead like crazy and i'm down to 8. they share a fry tank with moscow guppies and all the guppies are fine. i'm concerned they might not be getting enough to eat, though i feed them plenty. the water is also shared with a community tank, and all the fish in there are fine as well. anyone know what the fry eat? any other ideas why mine are dying?
ps. just got 16 new fry, so hopefully i can figure this out before it's too late for them!
Hatch live brine shrimp nauplii, and when you feed, hang a strong light above the water. It will attract the shrimp to the surface. Their movement stimulates the halfbeak fry to feed better.
unfortunately, they don't seem to eat the sea monkeys. i lost 2 batches entirely. 48 dead. one lived to about 2 months and looked like it was eating crushed up flakes but i guess not, because it just died today....
Sorry that you lost your fish. It took me several go-arounds to finally solve the problem of lost fry.
What ended up working for me is feeding springtails from my worm cultures. For these halfbeaks my fry tank is just a small tank (I have used custom made and 5 gallon size) which I fill with about 2-4” of water to start with. No filtration but I do water changes daily (starting with water from the main tank and then switching to fresh water after about a week). I would take and blow the springtails off of the culture onto the top of the water. You can then definitely see the fry eating and one by one the springtails disappear.
If you feed at least twice a day and change the water every day the fry grow quickly. After a week you can increase the water depth by an inch and keep doing that every week. I would keep testing but after 3-4 weeks you should be able to start feeding daphnia and other foods as the fry will start to learn to chase food that isn’t right on the surface. You can also try to start feeding crushed worm flake to get them used to that.
platinum halfbeak fry 10-18-2010.JPG (0.00 KB)
