Limia nigrofasciata

This little livebearer has turned out to be a real revelation and a lot of fun to keep. Although initially maintained in slightly brackish water, it seems to adjust perfectly well to the moderately hard freshwater (around 10 degrees dH, pH 7.5) conditions in my planted aquaria.

I started off with a group of three females and one male, bought during a trip out to Maidenhead Aquatics in Peterborough in 2007. Initially they cohabited with some halfbeaks, and if they produced any fry, they didn’t last long. It was only when they were moved to a planted 24-litre “breeder tank” on a windowsill that they back truly productive little fish.

This windowsill aquarium was created as a place to put plants and shrimps I had no space for in my other tanks. Natural sunlight keeps the plants healthy, and stimulates the growth of algae, but during the summer water temperature can exceed 30° C. This didn’t seem to phase the Limia though, and they did extremely well there, and the tank was soon filled with lots of baby Limia and cherry shrimps.

Each brood appears to consist of about 20 fry, and the parents don’t seem to have much of a predatory instinct. Or, put another way, in a tank with plenty of floating plants and algae, either the fry are able to hide away, or the parents happy enough to eat other things, that few fry seem to vanish.

The fry are easy to rear, and seem to thrive on a mix of green algae and Hikari ‘First Bites’ flake food. Growth isn’t especially fast, though males appear to become sexually mature within a couple of months. In this sense they’re a lot like guppies. On the other hand, the males aren’t nearly as aggressive towards one another as male guppies or swordtails.

One surprise is how well they do in my pufferfish community tank. I put a few surplus adults into the system to see if the puffers would nip them. Unexpectedly, the male Limia actually started chasing the puffers, and even after a couple of weeks there was no sign of fin damage or nipping. Unlike fancy livebearers, these hardy fish are able to swim strongly enough to thrive in a big aquarium with lots of water movement.

Currently, by breeding group lives in a Brillux 72-litre aquarium thick with aquarium plants such as Anubias, Aponogeton, Cryptocoryne, Hygrophila and Vallisneria. There are also lots of floating plants, primarily Amazon frogbit and Indian fern. The algae is largely left to do its own thing, partly because the plants take care of the algae issue, and partly because Limia do like to nibble on algae when they can.

Limia nigrofasciata confronts a female Pelvicachromis taeniatus

An example of the female of the species.

Some Limia fry were reared in a ‘windowsill’ aquarium thickly planted with Hygrophila spp. and rich with algae

Surplus Limia juveniles held a breeding net in the 180-litre tank until new homes can be found

The Limia females seem to favour floating plants as hiding places, and that’s where the newborn fry can be found