I know I started last week talking about the fish I brought home from SAKE, but I made a chance discovery this week and I want to talk about these guys before I forget.
One of our local fish stores in Phoenix, AquaTouch, had in stock a tank of Norman’s Lampeye Aplocheilichthys normani. It’s unusual in the sense that most fish stores just don’t stock killifish because of the short lifespan of many, because the majority of killies don’t have common names, and because the general public simply knows next to nothing about them.
I struggle with annual killies because of my climate. I prefer not to throw money after keeping the fish alive in the form of cranking the AC. Instead, I try to keep fishes that can tolerate a little heat. The annuals tend to be cooler water fishes, at least cooler than I can keep around here.
A. normani has a lifspan of about 3 years, so it’s not an annual. Unlike many killies, you can raise the fry with the adults, so it’s an excellent choice for a small planted tank for display.
The fish itself is a transparent white or silver with a reflective substance above the eyes that makes the fish appear to have glowing blue eyes in much the same way as Daisy’s Ricefish Oryzias woworae.
The picture above is a quick phone photo with a lot of reflections. I usually put black posterboard behind the tank to help bring out the colors, just haven’t done that yet so the reflections are bad in this picture.
This fish only gets to be about 3 cm long, so it stays very small. That makes it a perfect choice for a small planted tank. Mine are in a 2-1/2 gallon unheated tank with sponge filter and a clump of Christmas moss, which is less common than Java moss but looks better.