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Pantanodon podoxys
Bob Meyer wrote:
>
> Charlie G gave me a pop bottle full of P. padoxys
> (fish weren't worth the cost of a plastic bag I guess).
> Set them up in a 10 gallon salt water tank. I'm
> pulling 100 eggs a week from the 3 pair and neglecting
> the daylights out of them. The fry raise up easily
> after the first week. This particular strain is
> less colorful than a strain I had in the past but
> very prolific and robust.
>
Since the matter of fish names and collection codes has been raised
recently on KillieTalk, I can make a few comments with regard to this
species.
Firstly, the correct spelling of the species name is Pantanodon podoxys
(not "padoxys") and the collection code for the population presently in
the hobby is "Tanga TAN 95/15".
There is only one "strain" of this species presently in the hobby and
that is the Tanga TAN 95/15 population, collected by Ian Sainthouse,
Ruud Wildekamp and myself from a brackish water pool at the edge of a
tidal mangrove swamp a few kilometers north of Tanga in northeastern
Tanzania. The "strain" of this fish presently in the hobby derives from
about 4 wild pairs that I brought back to Canada. I visited the same
location last year but could not find the fish there on that occasion,
probably because extreme flooding in the area had modified the locality
(temporarily, I suspect).
This species had been collected a number of times before our '95
collection but never introduced into the hobby. Bruce Turner obtained
specimens in the 60s as part of an import but he never propagated them.
Wildekamp et al. took some back to Holland in the mid 70s (collected
from just north of Dar es Salaam) but these were also not propagated.
Seegers has, subsequently, also collected them but, so far as I know,
these were not introduced into the hobby.
In his book on the "Fishes of the Lake Rukwa Drainage" of Tanazania,
Seegers has suggested that Pantanodon podoxys should be known as
Pantanodon stuhlmanni as, in his opinion, that represents the same
species and the "stuhlmanni" species name has precedence. He is
probably correct in this assertion.
Incidentally, the wild specimens had absolutely spectacular color,
especially first thing in the mornings. You would not believe that the
fish now in the hobby represents the same species. The intensity of
color has generally diminished with each successive generation.
John Wubbolt wrote:
>
> Secondly for those who want to raise tons of
> Patanodon Podoxys set up a trio in a 5 gallon
> tank near a window. Let all the algae grow on
> the tank glass that wants to. Then hardly
> do water changes. This sounds odd but when
> I did bi monthly 20% water changes is when I
> got the most amount of fry. I also added some
> Caulerpa to my tank. This grew well in the
> sunlight and salt water. Fry fed off of the
> algae on the glass walls......
>
Yes, being filter feeders (in part at least) they like algae and will
graze this off the tank sides and bottom, and sponge filters, etc. If
you have a good growth of algae on the glass and scrape it off with a
blade, they will eat up every scrap of the scraped-off algae.
>
> The adults don't eat their fry so why bother picking eggs.....
>
This is not always the case. Mine used to eat their fry all the time.
Perhaps I wasn't feeding them enough !
__________________________________________________
Brian R. Watters
Department of Geology
University of Regina
Regina, Sask. S4S 0A2, Canada
Tel: (306) 585-4663
Fax: (306) 585-5433
E-mail: bwatters at sk_sympatico.ca