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To date, Hyphessobrycon amandae Gery-Uj, 1987 can be considered one of the smallest creatures among aquatic vertebrates. Although, according to some sources, the size of adult females reaches 3 cm, in practice they rarely exceed 1.5-2.0 cm, and males even less. In the aquarium guides, you can find a dozen similar representatives of the suborder of the hara-like species, but these fish are extremely rare in aquariums. The reasons for this - the complexity of delivery from the places of natural habitat, difficulty in breeding in captivity, low reproductivity, etc.
Now in vogue are capacious aquariums, and the prospects of small fish cause some concerns. Well, how much should you put, say, ordinary blue neon in a modern 400-liter aquarium, so that it does not look empty? And the very process of "viewing" small fish in a huge aquarium seems to be losing its meaning. So it turns out that interest in them is reduced. And the juxtaposition of small fish with large fish in one pond is almost impossible, since the latter most often consider their small neighbors food.
H.amandae was caught in 1986 in Rio Mansu (state of Mato Grosso, Brazil) during one of the expeditions of Heiko Blecher, an ichthyologist of world renown, and was named in honor of his mother Amanda. Fish not only successfully reached European aquariums, but also began to multiply there.
With the permission of the readers, I will henceforth refer to this fish as "amanda". Her path to my aquarium was not easy. First a few fish came from France to the famous Bulgarian specialist in haratsinovym, my old friend Dimetr Penev, who divorced them and in May 1998 sent me fourteen fish.
The shape of the amanda body gives an excuse to refer it to the "callistus" group (according to the G.Sterba classification, 1987), and by the tonality of the color it is closer to the red phantom (Megalamphodus sweglesi) with the difference that the amanda has no black spots on the body and fins. Unpaired and caudal fins reddish. In one litter there are specimens with both pale and more intense coloring, and the latter is not a privilege of the "stronger sex". The anterior ray of the provocatively directed dorsal fin is light-cream, the rest of it is grayish. The eyes are golden, dimly glittering in reflected light.
Taurus of fish is strongly squeezed from sides, which allows it to squeeze into the narrowest slits. Appearance of amanda clearly reflect the poetic names, appropriated to it by European aquarists: English call her Ember Tetra - "tetra-coal" smoldering in ashes, and Germans - Funkensalmler, i.e. "Haratsinida-sparks" or Feuersalmler - "fiery haratsinida."
It so happened that I was able to breed fish only in the fall. In the literature of the detailed life-history of this not so rare fish I was not able to find. In the illustrated encyclopaedia O. Rybakova information left a wide field for imagination, and, moreover, as I was convinced later, still had gross inaccuracies. Fortunately, D. Penev described in some detail how they treat these charming babies.
I knew from my own experience that the spawning volume is often of decisive importance for success, so I allocated 15-liter aquariums for crumbs with separator grids on the bottom and Thai bush ferns in which the fish could hide in fright.
When dealing with such small and even rare creatures, you begin to be wary, fearing to make a fatal mistake. And yet I lost the largest (1.5-centimeter!) And promising female. It never entered my head, with what desperate tenacity these fish fight for their lives, fleeing from the pursuit. They rushed from corner to corner, showing the wonders of agility and ingenuity, jumping out of the net in the last moment. Out of power, they literally squeezed into the corners of the aquarium, into the slightest shelter, and it was not possible to get them from there without damaging it. One of the "insidious" tricks (by the way, it was repeated more than once) - to huddle in the thick of the plants and sit there for a long time, without giving signs of life.
To catch a couple, I had to pull out from the general aquarium a filter, a thermometer, a heater and almost all the floating plants (there was no soil). Only a dense bundle of Javanese moss remained. Finally, I seem to have managed to pick up the right female, but when I looked in the net, it was not there. There was not this annoying fish in the aquarium. For about ten minutes I spent on unsuccessful searches in the water and on the floor, pulled out and shook the bunch of moss several times, dipping it into the water, nothing. Puzzled and distressed, I finally decided to pull on the stems of a bundle of Javanese moss. And there, in the middle, I found a female already suffocated without water.
What persistence! I remember only one such aquarium fish that does not leave its shelter under any circumstances, even if it is taken out of the water - it's Neolamprologus brichardi - tangangike "Princess of Burundi".
In the end, I spawned three "nests" for spawning. In each - a female and two males (two, because they looked very small, barely reaching 1.5 cm). Three days I waited in vain for the fish to show signs of spawning excitement. In all three aquariums, the Amanda behaved calmly, ate a small portion of Artemia nauplius proposed on the second day, but did not intend to multiply. Further keep the spawning fish did not make sense, and I began to plant them. And again the fish showed miracles of resourcefulness: they had to take out everything from aquariums, even separator grids.
Suddenly, I was surprised to notice that under the surface of the water of a spawning person there was a frightened larva - a glass ball with a tail. Here, for the first time, I realized that Amanda had spawned in the dark. It was amazing! After all, amanda - hifesobrikon, and among the known to aquarists representatives of this species with night spawning seems to be not. In addition, night charatsinki have characteristic light reflecting elements of color: spots, stripes, etc. In amanda, such signs are absent, except for the iris of the eye, which faintly shines with gold. In my opinion, such a soft "cataphor" for a night marriage game is not enough. But this is my opinion was erroneous (later D. Penev told me that the amanda also may have a day spawning).
For the first time, two females spawned. Caviar was small, unfertilized eggs were almost absent, and healthy were colorless and transparent, so that the fruits of night spawning in the eyes did not rush.
Two weeks later, I planted another group, this time from two females and three males. If, before the first spawning, the whole flock was sitting together, now I separated the males from the females with a separating grid so that the fish could see each other and feel the "smell".
During the preparation period, I often observed in the evenings an animation in the pack, the running of fish along the net and glasses. Obviously, even before that, the amends were spawning at night, and that's why the first recorded spawning gave such a small number of offspring (4 females from one female and 22 from another). But the result of spawning, which was preceded by the separate content of the producers, exceeded my wildest expectations - later, during transplantation, I counted 196 fry!
The fright experienced by the amands at capture does not entail unpleasant consequences: they adapt very quickly to new conditions. So, to the third spawning (this time I finally managed to observe the marriage ritual) the fish started literally 10 to 15 minutes after the transplant.
As expected, it all started with a spawning rut. With increasing excitement, crumbs rushed about the aquarium, and it was obvious that the walls were clearly limiting their run-up. At 10 o'clock in the evening I turned off the light in the room and in other aquariums, leaving only a 15-watt light bulb burning in the air. Her light did not bother the fish very much, but allowed me to see what was happening.
The males rushed madly along the aquarium, the females also participated in the race, but from time to time they hid somewhere, as if resting. Periodically, the female stopped among the leaves of Anubias nana or in the corner under the heater, and a male was attached to it from the side. After a short mutual flutter, a soft, barely noticeable mutual push followed, and the fish again rushed to run along the walls. The general spawning cycle was very long: about six hours!
Of the eggs, the larvae go out after a day, and after a day they move from the bottom to the walls of the spawning. Then everything goes according to the traditional scheme for small characynids: on the third day, the larvae have eyes, and on the fifth day - it is necessary to start feeding. Since the larva reaches the usual start of small-scale haracine 3.5-4.0 millimeters by the beginning of active feeding, one can only guess: how can 120-150 eggs be placed in the belly of a tiny amanda? I do not exclude that they are stored and vymyotyvayutsya in a few, so to say sublimated (dehydrated) form, and then quickly gaining moisture, swelling to normal size. This phenomenon is seen in other South American haracin.
After three days of feeding the Cyclops nauplius and the freshwater cowwort from natural reservoirs, amanda larvae are transferred to a larger feed. If you start feeding from a cultured infusoria-shoe, the transition to an enlarged feed (for example, Artemia nauplii) will be postponed on the fifth or seventh day, since the "shoe" is clearly inferior in nutritional value of pond dust and brackish-water rotifers Brachionus plecatilis.
Staining (the appearance of pinkness) begins in the fry at the beginning of the third week, and by a month and a half before you already have a tiny copy of the adult amanda. With good care, two-month-old males reach 1.0-1.2 cm, and females 1.5-1.6 cm. Further growth slows somewhat, and at the age of four months, the first spawning is possible.
The coloration of fish with a few "thickens", but later in the flock remain pale specimens. I hope that with the persistent selection of bright producers this annoying "oversight" of nature can be gradually eliminated.
Amanda is very strong and enduring, staunchly tolerates water pollution (nitrites, nitrates), without losing any appetite. Fish are omnivorous. Infuzoria, Artemia, Cyclops, Daphnia, Diapthomas, Coretra, Bloodworm, Tuber, Enchitrea, various dry food, crumbs of white bread, green peas - everything goes into action, just to fit the size.
If the fish are in a separate aquarium, then in a calm environment they stand in place for a long time, slightly twitching the fins in time to breathe.
At first I doubted whether the amends could withstand food competition with larger fish. However, from the very first days of keeping in the general aquarium, my distrust of their viability has safely disappeared. In the environment of adult hemigrammus and afioharaksy they boldly rushed to the stern. In general, in a "communal" aquarium, the behavior of fish changes markedly, they become more eager, more mobile. This is partly due to the fact that their usual half-demented state of full fish is disturbed by other inhabitants. Sometimes Amandies get lost in a dense flock that looks charming against the background of underwater greenery.
Of course, these tiny haracynides can not be kept with large fish. Even the adult Sumatran barby, despite Amanda's swiftness and zeal, is able to drive and catch her.
For reproduction H.amandae, the water normally used for spawning of red neon is suitable: DGH = 0.2-0.5 degrees, DKH = 0-0.1 degrees, pH = 5.5-6.0, T = 24-25 Degrees C. I do not apply any infusions of peat, alder cones and other additives, so persistently recommended for the Haratsin by many authors.
Amanda is very pleasant in everyday life. If you "forgive" her small size, you easily and quickly get used to it and with pleasure you look for it in your home aquarium.


I. Vanyushin Moscow