My biotope aquarium

Common names: Butterfly

Settlement: Lives in swamps, streams, ponds and lakes, in rivers its biotope is limited to riparian areas with almost stagnant water. It is almost never present in clear waters, always in the blackwater habitats of West Africa - Nigeria, Cameroon, Congo and Zaire

Size: 10-12 cm

Water chemistry: Fresh water. Temperature 24 to 30 ° C, pH 6-7.2 (6.5), hardness 2-9 gH (5), 1-8 kH

Difficulty: Moderately demanding (6/10)

Aquarium: 100 liters is enough for fish. The aquarium must be well planted. Necessary glass cover to prevent jumping out of the aquarium. For them, the surface of the water is most important, the depth plays no role. We can have several butterflies together in a really big aquarium, because they don't like to hang out with each other. The best roommates are fish from the mormirid family, African snipe, African tetra, synodontis, and species of West African perch. African butterflies feel best in soft, slightly acidic water, colored with tannins, at about 27 ° C. Add peat to the aquarium to achieve the desired results, the alternative is dry leaves with tannin content.

Feeding: Live food - terrestrial insects, flies, spiders, crickets, worms, mosquito larvae. Attention, small fish are not safe.

Breeding: The male has a pre-tail fin with a curved, evenly split edge, while the female has an evenly rounded one. (shown in the drawing below)
The water should have a pH of 6.5, a hardness of 8-10 gH and a temperature of 26-29 ° C. Adding peat to the filter and feeding steam with different foods will help trigger spawning. One of the methods is to lower the water level to about 10 cm, lower the temperature to a minimum, after a few weeks slowly raise the water level to 30 cm, (it is important to add even softer slightly acidic water and gradually raise the temperature from 26 to 30 ° C Ideally, this process is to simulate rain. The male hunts the female before spawning. Three to seven eggs are laid during each mating. Spawning takes place below the surface and is very turbulent, lasting several hours. The eggs float to the surface, where after 10 hours A good pair lays 100-350 eggs, spawning is repeated two to four times with a break of a day or two between each spawning, followed by a break of up to a couple of months or less, transfer the eggs immediately to a separate aquarium. hours and they are very difficult to grow, they are about 6 mm in size, they start swimming or moving on the fifth day. to just a few inches, that the concentration of artemia is concentrated around the young, as they are also below the surface and will never reach the food below them. After two weeks, small fish grow pectoral fins, the growth is quite fast with good and varied live food.

Description of fish

It is the only representative of the genus and also of the family Pantodontidae. The butterfly is a distant relative of the arowan. P. buchholzi is a highly oriented species that swims just below the water surface, on the side it has the shape of a bird with a flat back surface, and from above it looks like a butterfly, hence the name. The wing-like pectoral fins are very large compared to the total body size. The mouth is directed towards the surface, has two upper and a large lower jaw and the ability to bite hugely (picture below). She is undoubtedly unique in appearance and behavior. The basic body color is brown with an irregular pattern of white and black spots and stripes. The butterfly is like a creature from prehistory, the species is very old, as it existed in the time of the dinosaurs. The fish evolved into the way we know it ten million years ago, and during evolution it retained all the original characteristics, we could say that it is a living fossil. It is friendly and wonderfully adapted to the environment and lifestyle. Immobility and agility are two opposing characteristics of this beautiful fish. Thanks to its marble-brown coloration and widely spread pectoral fins, it looks like a dried leaf that has fallen to the surface of the water. Most of the time she is motionless, then suddenly jumps on or above the surface if she feels threatened or an insect touches the surface. The butterfly also detects the fall of an insect on the surface with special sensors in its skin, which are sensitive to the waves of the water surface created by fallen insects, through which it can accurately determine the direction and distance of the insect. It has a unique structure of large eyes so that it can see above and below the water, can accurately calculate the distance to prey and jump to it with incredible speed, the human eye is not able to see its incredibly fast movement. Fish have the ability to breathe atmospheric air through the air bladder, most fish use the bladder for buoyancy, and the butterfly also for breathing.

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Notes

A fish species that is active mostly at dusk. The butterfly is known for its ability to glide short distances through the air. This species requires frequent partial water changes and live food. Butterflies will eat smaller companions (their species) and do not tolerate other surface fish. Due to the ability to jump, this species should be grown in an aquarium with a tight-fitting cover, preferably in a paludarium - aquaterrarium.

The fish is sensitive to nitrates and a poor bacteriological picture of the aquarium, like most ossuaries it is also sensitive to drugs where we need to be careful.

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