About a year and a half ago, I came across a fish I had never seen before, the Blue Neon Rice Fish (Oryzias woworai). It had been discovered just a few years earlier by a woman named Dr. Daisy Wowor, a carcinologist from Indonesia. (A carcinologist studies crustaceans.) The fish is also called Daisy’s rice fish after Dr. Wowor. (Find a nice write-up on the fish here.)
Anyway, I bought six of these cute things, not knowing whether I had any females. turns out, I did. These fish are sexually dimorphic in that the female actually carries eggs around externally for a time, attaching them near the vent.
At the time, I had almost no tank space, so I put them into a tank with four Dario dario. Unfortunately, these guys ate the eggs and taught the males to eat the eggs, as well.
The last Dario dario died some time ago, and I lost four fo the rice fish along the way, leaving me with only a pair and a 50% chance of having one of each gender. I did.
In early December, I found a fry in the tank. A week later, another. The second eventually was eaten, but the first survived by hiding in the roots of the floating duckweed.
About ten days ago, I noticed some little blue dots in the tank. They are called blue neon rice fish because their eyes reflect in blue to the point they look like they glow (thus the neon tag). I looked more closely and over the course of a few days, I counted 8 fry, five much smaller than the other three–probably litter mates.
I haven’t seen these in any of our local fish stores recently, and I thought I would lose the line through attrition. Now, it looks like I will have the opportunity to continue them for at least one more generation.
Here are a couple of photos I snapped with my phone. They aren’t great pictures, but hey, better than nothing.
On top is one of the adults. They are hard to sex when there are no eggs inside or attached to the female, so I don’t know which one.
Adult Blue Neon Rice Fish (aka Daisy’s Rice Fish) Oryzias woworae
This one has two of the fry visible. The closer is blurry, the one at the back looks a bit more clear. There may be some smaller fry int he picture, but it’s hard to tell.
ETA: There is also a small one up by the duckweed roots.
Blue Neon Rice Fish fry (Daisy’s Rice Fish) Oryzias woworea
In other fish news, tomorrow is the annual local killifish event, SAKE, put on by the Arizona Rivulen Keepers. I love this event, and I’ll probably come home with a few new species. I actually have three empty tanks set up this time. Last year, all my tanks were occupied.
I’ll try to snap some pictures and post them next Friday.