{or even some 'rare' plant!}They are awesome and can't be appreciated unless you see them. I think I paid about $9. each for mine, but if I had room right now I would get some. I have never seen them available except from one other source, who I would never buy fish from again.:frown:
They are always quite red, but the males turn a deep red when they are displaying to each other, and turn almost crimson when they in a spawning mood. If you have a group of n. mortenthaleri, there will always be a couple of males showing the deep red colouration, but you have to condition them to get the crimson colour going. I have seven right now, and three of them are usually deep red.
THANK YOU!!! you just sold me on those. I had never seen them in person. So all I had to go by was pictures. Even the normal red is red enough for me lol. Those males seemed to put off a red aura, almost to red lol. Very cool. I like how they have there fins fanned out to.:thumbsup:
Thanks. I'm glad you liked 'em. They get so red they seem almost ghostlike when they move through the plants.
I'm a fan of pencilfish in general. I used to have seven brown pencilfish (n. eques) several years ago, but now I'm down to two. If I had room I'd build up a school again. I like the way they swim at an angle and graze on everything, including the surface film. They have a tendency to end up on the floor, though.
I've also got a shoal of three-lined pencilfish (n. trifasciatus.) Quite an attractive gold and black pattern on them, but they beat up on my coral reds. Very territorial. Sometimes it looks like my reds are just about to spawn when one of those three-lined thugs charges out of the greenery and breaks it up.
