I currently only have dwarf pencilfish in my 50 gallon tank, which is pretty densely planted. As a result, I am having a bit of a population explosion as there seems to be more and more fry every time I look. Have any of you purposely added another species of fish that may prey on small fry for population control? It looks to me that the dwarf pencilfish have no interest in eating fry once they hatch.

Added Angelfish to get a handle on my guppy problem. I got tired of hauling buckets of guppies to Petco who, in all likelihood sold them as feeder fish anyway.
After awhile I could finally separate out the males and females.

Can't say I recommend it..just was a "natural" way to deal w/ it.. Tank was heavily planted as well. so they had a chance at least..

Hmmm. Adding predators might not be the best idea..
http://theaquariumwiki.com/wiki/Nann...ckfordi#Sexing
Seems easy enough to separate sexes..
got a Petco handy?

Luckily, these guys aren't as prolific as guppies, but the fry are starting to add up. I think I have 10 sub adults and at least 20-30 juveniles--no clue how many tiny fry may be hiding out.

I don't want to add anything that can take out the adults, which I feel will happen with something like an angel. I was thinking of some other small fish like neon, cardinals, or espei that could take out the majority of the small fry. I don't mind some surviving just because that will replenish the adult population as it ages.

Let them breed and give them away or sell them! We don’t see pencil fish a lot in our LFS.

Good luck with whatever you choose.

I would love to have your problem with pencils. They are some lucky fish.

Check out Golden Wonder Killi. I used to have them before for guppy fry control and they got butifull, fat, lazy and ... 3"+.
I just got 2 from my LFS and they look slightly different from my old ones and the owners swears they will be 2" max. We will see.

Pencils are awesome fish. You can go ahead and ship me all the ones you don’t want😉.

Other small tetras may be of use. My cardinals go crazy eating diamond tetra eggs for example. But I am not sure they are the best hunters. The babies wouldn't have to get very big for them to no longer view them as food. A larger tetra (like the aforementioned diamonds) might do a better job.

That said I have a similar problem dealing with baby kribensis and the fish I added to eat them get a few but not as many as I would like.

pencils should be fairly easy to rehome. look up your local aquarium club lot of people love em for apisto dithers.

Ding, Ding, Ding....we have a winner! I'll gladly come net those puppies and give them a new home

Add me to that list for some dwarf pencilfish too!

Where are you located @loveflying1991 ?

Wow! I didn't realize my question would go down this route. Honestly, I am not interested in selling fish right now--too much hassle. I may reconsider at a later time, but for now I am just trying manage the population of pencilfish. If I change my mind, I guess I know where to look for interested people.

Thank you to everyone who has participated in the discussion.

General any fish that is a carnivore will eat another fish as long the can catch it and it fits in it's mouth

I used to keep my endler's in check with a betta. He was kind of chill for a betta so he didn't cause complete anihilation. Seems he got only the slow and stupid.

Then don't sell them, just give them away.


.

I would like some pencilfish, my LFS never has them.