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And, yes, this is an ironic title, based on the fact that Calilasseia tried to keep some and found that, when there were only a few males in one tank and no other fish of any species, they turned into homicidal maniacs toward each other -- whereas those of us who have kept a fairly large number of males in a regular community tank have had no trouble at all, unless you count the tendency of some males (but not others) to challenge each other by swimming up side-to-side and wiggling their bodies against each other in what is obviously a form of challenge. I've also been puzzled by the really remarkable range of different color patterns one seems to see in Beckford's.

Well, I spent the weekend at the Sacramento library going through EVERY issue of TFH all the way back through 1997, looking for interesting articles (which I'd identified in advance using the very useful index of the magazine at http://www.tfhmagazine.com/default.aspx?pageid=6 ). I found a fair amount of interesting stuff -- including, where Characins are concerned, confirmation that Headstanders of all types are such determined vegetarians that it's wise to keep them only with plastic plants; and that the Red Phantom Tetra (as I myself have observed) does indeed seem to get along just fine in water ranging up to 79 deg F (26 C), contrary to some other reports that it requires cooler water below 73 F (23 C) to stay healthy.

But the big prize was a very detailed article by Stanley Weitzman on breeding various Pencilfish in the Feb. 2002 issue -- in which he provides a detailed and convincing explanation of the peculiarly inconsistent-seeming behavior of the Beckford's. Specifically: they go in for the "lek" form of social organization -- that is, the males defend small territories which they use for breeding:

"In the case of Beckford's in an aquarium, the females swarm together along with some pale-colored, apparently sexually inactive males, if the latter are present. These specimens almost always occupy an open area of the aquarium. Peripheral to this 'central' group are sexually active males diplaying both their bright and dark colors. These males were reported by Peter Kuenzer [in his 1982 paper on their behavior] to defend territories that have somewhat overlapping boundaries, depending on the nature and shape of the surrounding plant cover and how many sexually active males were present. The dark sexually active males spend much of their time displaying and 'fighting' with each other, often in the form of tail-beating... Sometimes more than two males will be involved, bu usually only two of the males will dominate in this activity. Tail-beating ordinarily results in one or more of the involved males disengaging and leaving the immediate territory, perhaps only to return a few minutes later and again get involved in tail-beating.

"Interestingly, Kuenzer states that no dominance decisions occurred among the males as a result of agonistic encounters. We would certainly agree that dominance is of a very temporary nature. Kuenzer observed that many sexually active males remained in more or less the same area, each male with a somewhat defined territory within the confines of that area. He also observed that each agonistic act by two males was accompanied by increased darkness of their dark colors, while somewhat paler colors predominated during pauses in agonistic behavior. Females when ready to spawn swam toward the darker males; this induced courtship activity by the males and ultimately spawning behavior.

"This behavior...is very close to what we believe we have seen for Beckford's in our aquaria, although we are somewhat less inclined to emphasize the reality of definite defended territories, especially for some of the other pencilfishes that practice tail-beating. We wonder if in some species, at least, such territories are relatively ephemeral and may actually be any space around a male at a given time. If this is correct, then lek behavior is not exactly what is occurring... To determine true lek behavior and the establishment of relatively stable territories, studies should be made on wild populations in their native habitat."

Well. Unfortunately, I didn't think to get the name and issue of the journal in which Kuenzer's article appears, and will have to do so next time I'm at that library. But it looks as though the behavior of male Beckford's varies greatly depending on not only the number of males in the tank, and maybe their annual cycle of sexual readiness, but also on such subtleties as the "nature and shape of the surrounding plant cover". So Cali was unlucky enough to get, by chance, some kind of combination of these environmental factors that turned his particular set of male Beckford's into Hatfields and McCoys with fins. Meanwhile, I still have never had any such trouble with mine (including the very brightly colored males I tend to buy, who, I now learn, have those colors only for the moment) -- nor have I yet seen any Beckford's in a store tank go in for anything nastier than the harmless tail-beating routine (at which they can be very determined). It seems that Beckford's are among the very few animals with a sex life even more complex than that of humans...

Weitzman also reports that the spectacular new Red Arc (or, as he calls it, "Coral Red" ) Pencilfish goes in for a milder version of the same behavior, in which they make tail-beating gestures at each other from a modest distance without actually touching like the Beckford's do, and the one who makes the more violent gestures wins while "the other male quickly swims away." He also says that "dominant male Coral Reds are very agonistic to other males when only 2 or 3 are present in an aquarium", so presumably this is one of the violence-triggering factors with Beckford's as well. But he also reports that Coral Reds are not only fairly robust -- surviving shipping from Peru a lot better than many other new wild imports -- but fairly easy to breed. In fact, the adults can be safely kept with their newly hatched fry, showing no desire at all to eat them. I repeat: when this fish starts being mass-bred, it will be a BIG hit.

Finally: I have at last managed to get my hands on a few more Trifasciatus (Three-striped) Pencilfish, although not without trouble. A shipment of about 50 hit my LFS, but they were in bad shape when they arrived. Only about 10 were still alive when I saw them a few days later, and most of those were washed-out in color and obviously felt miserable. (Trifasciatus have a really unusual ability to change color, especially when frightened.) But a few looked healthy, so I bought three. One died over the weekend, but the other two seem to be in fine shape at the moment -- and I have been forcefully reminded once again that, when this particular fish is feeling good, it is one absolutely gorgeous fish, with particularly brilliant and rich-looking metallic gold coloring and very bright red fins (plus bright sky-blue ventral fins). Beckford's and Marginatus, pretty though they are, can't even begin to compare. As with the Blue Emperor Tetras which I also currently have in the library tank, I intend to work especially hard to try to keep these little guys alive. (Not that I don't have some other lovely fish in that tank right now -- but they're all of types that are now easy to get in the stores, which these two species are not. And since my recent brainstorm in adding lots of bottom-feeders to the tank to clean up all the uneaten food off the bottom before any of it has a chance to partially decay and thus poison the fish that eat it off the bottom later, my previously disastrous fish-loss rate has nosedived -- so, just maybe, I can pull this off.)

Minor correction is needed here with respect to my pown observations Bruce.

The Beckford's I had were in the Panda Fun Palace, and at that time shared their home with Lemons, Cardinals and Panda Corys. The point I made in previous posts is this: my view is that if this fish is allowed to become the dominant species in an aquarium, then all Hell will break loose. I am also inclined, after reading what you said about them adopting the 'lek' system of mating, to conclude that instead of doing as I did, and keeping them in a straight 1:1 ratio of males to females, they should be treated like haremic spawning Cichlids, and females should outnumber males.

Additionally, males in particular seem to place demands on space that are apparently out of proportion to their small body size. The fact that they adopt a 'lek' mating system has caused the light bulb to go on over the head! In a 'lek' system (as practised by, among other creatures, Capercaillie birds in Scotland) males set up territories adjacent to each other, then compete for females. Therefore, what these fishes need is an aquarium that is sufficiently spacious to allow these territories to form. Which, given that the aquarium needs to have plant thickets in ti as well, and also needs Amazon Sword type plants or Cryptocorynes because this is their preferred spawning substrate, means that success with these fishes needs a bigger aquarium than their nominally small adult size would suggest. Part of the problem with the Panda Fun Palace is that it's an underwater rainforest, and the swimming spaces between planted areas are restricted because the plants are growing like stink. So, consequently, I would advise people intent on keeping this species in future to house them in a spacious aquarium (a 4ft tank or bigger), furnish the aquarium with plant thickets strategically placed to form 'landmarks', with open water between, use a ratio of 1 male to 4 females or possibly even more, and for general maintenance, ensure that they are accompanied by another fish species that triggers shoaling behaviour - something that looks potentially big and predatory without being an actual threat. A Keyhole Cichlid would be a good choice of faux predator, as it's a mild mannered fish that just happens to look the part.

If I run with these fishes again, they're going to share their home with Anomalochromis thomasi Cichlids, which should possess sufficient size and 'predatory aura' from the standpoint of the Beckford's to keep them in line, while being sufficiently peaceful to pose no threat.

The mention of a 'lek' system of mating now makes sense - my psychotic males were behaving like Melanochromis chipokae Mbuna because there wasn't enough open space between landmarks to allow the males to have their territories with only minor overlap - they were on top of each other all the time, and familiarity bred contempt as it were. Plus, my male/female ratio was wrong. In a modest sized setup, therefore, I'd recommend only one male, and the rest females. Hopefully, a lone male surrounded by lots of females will put more energy into courting and mating than into displays of internecine warfare!


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

My current Beckford's -- about a 50-50 mix of males and females, as far as I can tell -- are acting totally peacefully toward each other. But then, that 50-gallon tank is a very unorthodox (and probably unhealthy) arrangement anyway -- instead of having any large school of any type of fish, I have just a few members of each of about a dozen different species of small tetras and rasboras (except for my Glowlights and Cardinals, which are large enough in number that they seem to be schooling normally). Also, the tank -- while it has a solid black backdrop, plus a black sunshield on one side and dark gravel -- has a pretty sparse collection of plastic plants in it (which I'm about to increase somewhat).

This provides a much wider variety of different-colored fish in that tank -- which both I and the kids at the library like -- but I imagine it makes the fish a lot more nervous than they would otherwise be. Still, none of them are hiding or showing visible signs of being intimidated; and in this particular environment the male Beckford's are showing no signs of hostility, or even territoriality, at all. Instead, they all swim completely freely around the tank. (Presumably they think they can't afford hostility toward each other in such an environment, for the reason Cali gives.) Obviously this is not an environment in which any of my fish will ever breed, but then I don't care about that.

By the way, that Trifasciatus Pencilfish that I thought had died has turned up alive, well, and colorful. I assumed that he had died because SOMEBODY did over the weekend; I found my Yoyo Loach munching happily on somebody's unrecognizable remains (and had the devil of a time getting the rest of that dead fish out of the Loach's mouth; he didn't want to give up his prize). At this point I don't know who really kicked the bucket -- I have so many small fish in there right now zipping around the tank that it's hard to run the Fish Censuses that I used to hold -- but everybody else looks very healthy and active, which again raises the possibility that keeping a big population of bottom-feeders may be THE key to easily keeping even some of the more delicate species of freshwater fish (provided, of course, that you also continue to do other common-sense activities such as changing about 10% of the tank water weekly).

One other side note on that other article I mentioned stating that Red Phantom Tetras (contrary to what most articles say) can actually get along quite well in the same warm water as most Tropicals: this meshes with a story Herbert Axelrod once told about finding a single extraordinary stream in southern Venezuela that was packed with a combination of very colorful Rams, Red Phantoms, AND Cardinal Tetras. Rams are famous for needing water warmer than most Tropicals, and Red Phantoms for supposedly needing water cooler than most of them -- but the two species seemed to be getting along just fine together in that stream. (My own experience is that Red Phantoms are actually moderately durable, rather than as delicate as books usually say. But they are also timid.)

Plus, in a 50 gallon, your Beckford's have more space than they do in my underwater rainforest.

Interesting to note the observations about Red Phantoms. Not least because my Braz Walker pocket book describes them as being hardy Tetras from a maintenance standpoint that only need care and attention to water chemistry when breeding. Here's what the book says on them:

Care: Schooling fish, best kept in groups. Hardy and peaceful, good in community situation with other fishes of similar size and temperament. Moderately soft, neutral to somewhat acid water preferred; plants appreciated. Lively. Temperature 72 to 82 degrees F.

Breeding is then described as follows:

Breeding: Rather difficult, apparently depending greatly on water quality and cleanliness. Breeding temperature 80 to 82 degrees F. Standard procedure for the more difficult Hyphessobrycon species, which are rather similar.

Note by the way that the book (dating as it does from 1974) still uses Megalamphous sweglesi as the scientific name.

Mind you, having flicked through the TFH articles list from one of your links, and alighted upon an article in two parts covering spawning triggers in fishes, one interesting smippet from that article concerns Rummies : one researcher determined that the BIG determining factor in Rummies spawning (apart from warm temperatures) was low concentrations of dissolved calcium salts. The water could contain other minerals (e.g., magnesium salts) that contributed to water hardness, but calcium salts in quantity suppressed spawning. So, anyone wishing to spawn this fish in a hard water area had better buy an RO unit and condition the water afterwards with peat filtration.

Returning to the Beckford's, if all they have in the way of 'landmarks' is a few plastic plants, and lots of open space between them, chances are this is also contributing toward their being well behaved, as well as the fact that they have a decent volume of water. With increased planting, you may find that your males start to become more visibly feisty. Worth watching out for just in case ...


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

Interesting article.
My Beckford's Pencils are in a 10g
tank, with 6 C. Hasbrosus and 3 Tiny Baby
Angelfish (which will soon be moved to a larger
grow out tank).
They are not aggressive at all with any of the other
fish, and they are certainly the dominant fish in the
tank.
I have 4 of them, 2 males and 2 females,
one pair of which is dominant and the other pair
sub-dominant.


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