Rainbowric Posted October 29, 2012 Report Share Posted October 29, 2012 (edited) Melanotaenia parkinsoni is another very old and still quite popular species of Rainbowfish. I was out this weekend and saw them in two of the LFS in Calgary. The parkinsoni was collected in 1978 by Gerry Allen and most of the population today would be from that collection. So this makes it one of the oldest rainbowfish species in the hobby. Like a lot of the first collected rainbowfish ...boesemani, Goyder River, and praecox it has deterioted considerably over the last 30 years. I have been outcross breeding parkinsoni now for almost a decade trying to bring it back to it original beauty. Three years ago I recieved a female from Jeff Burch who had recieved his colony from Gary Lange. I outcrossed it with my best male and today I think I have pretty much one of the finest parkinsoni around having inquires from the USA after posting some pictures on the US forum. This species is a very prolific breeder producing 100's of fry from a single pair quite easily in a few days. They do well in our declorinated Alberta tap water. Temperatures from 76 to 80 degrees is the best for these fish but they can do okay in cooler temperatures down to room temp. The fry are smaller than most rainbowfish species and will take a few more days on powder food, before taking to baby brine. Like the boesemani there are many designations on this species...Orient, Rot/orange, Red, Yellow, Marci, however there was only the orange and yellow variation collected. Even though the Marci is seen quite often in the LFS ...it is a hybrid! It is not in any one of the Science Journals today. Not a terribly bad looking fish, but being a hybrid one never knows what might come out of it breeding or what kind of behavior it might have. Below is a picture of my oldest male.....about 3 years of age and almost 5 inches in length. The next picture is him with his girl. They have been together since birth. They are in a community tank with many other species and they will not interbred with any other species .... only with each other. The female does not have as much, or any of the color of the male, and she also has much shorter fins. Seeing a female in the LFS, all you might see is a silver minnow. She may not be quite as pretty but if you don't have a girl for him you will miss much to be seen with the parkinsoni. Happy with her male she is not totally colorless. I was able to capture a picture of a Marci Rainbowfish a few weeks back. This one was well looked after, I don't think I have ever seen one in such fine shape... Still nothing though compared to the real parkinsoni! I wonder what these two are up to now !!!! These two definitely keep my catfish well feed with fresh eggs Hope you have enjoyed....will have some pictures of some young from this pair to post soon and some pairs looking for a new home! Best regards, Ric -------------------------------- "Melanotaenia boesemani from Lake Aytinjo" The Aytinjo variant does have stronger colours! Edited November 4, 2012 by Rainbowric Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rainbowric Posted November 12, 2012 Author Report Share Posted November 12, 2012 A few pictures of some young ....well they are almost 2.5 inches .... more like young aldults as they are certainly producing lots of eggs! These are young from the parents displayed in the first post of this thread. These young are wild and crazy! Regards Ric Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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