Harvey Creek Blue Eyes courtship and dominance display

[Baccus]

I finally managed to catch my Harvey Creek Blue Eyes in the act of courtship and showing off. They are great fun to watch and so amazingly quick. The endlers tried to hog the limelight most of the time and even my Barron river shrimp made a cameo apperance.

http://s1139.photobucket.com/albums/n547/Baccus4702/?action=view&current=DSCF2826.mp4

[zacsbee89]

Thats so cool!!!

this reminds me, Ive got to get onto bob to get some cash together and get some zebras and blue eyes!!!

[sajica]

One of my favourite natives. Yours look to have nice dark yellow to nearly honey coloured fins. Is that right?

Mine were never that dark. Hyberactive little buggers are impossible to photograph

[Baccus]

They are a nice colour, I think Bob said he got them from a particular part of s certain creek system, so they may have some localised special colouration.

And yep they are impossible to photograph, hence the video. Endlers are just as frustrating.

I really like them and hope with them spawning I can have some fry survive with all the thick plants for fry to hide in. The eggs surviving to hatch is another issue.

[northboy]

Good work on that one and they are looking good

They tend to be gravel spawners if you can not find any eggs, yep a locational variation and there is lots of local variations up here.

Bob

[Baccus]

Unfortunately where the gravel is in this tank is where my loaches most tend to hang out, and I am pretty sure that even my well behaved dwarf chain loaches wont be able to resist some tempting eggs.

Because the blue eyes kept zooming into the thick moss at the back of the tank I was hoping they might have spawned in there.

At least if they do have any eggs survive the attentions of my other fish, the fry will have a chance of surviving around the tiger lotus, the new born endler fry tend to hide on the lotus leaves or in the tickest parts of the leaf jungle.

[fishmosy]

Great fish, I love blue-eyes.

[Baccus]

I am very fond of them, I think its a shame that most shops if they do stock them only have juvi's and never see the males in full breeding mode, let alone thier lightening fast battles and fancy displays. I had trouble filming them and keeping them in range/ shot let alone having the endlers thinking it was dinner time.

I am slowly teaching my local pet shop about other less known or commonly kept fish, they do get in the odd blue eye but I have not dared get any because I don't want to corrupt this bloodline by introducing blue eyes from a different region. I know the poor guy in the fish room would literally be drooling if he eve saw the rest of Bob's treasures like fresh water pipe fish, the fresh water crabs ( I sort of got the pet shop guy addicted to shrimp :o) and fresh water moray eels. Let alone the fresh water damsel fish, the guy at the pet shop is a marine fish nut so the damsels would really interest him.

[fishmosy]

Too true mate. Its funny that our native rainbowfish have huge followings overseas but not so much here.

I've never seen many of the things that Bob shows off in any store. Every time he posts it makes me think about how popular they would be overseas and how lucky we are.

[Baccus]

We certianly are lucky to have the range of species and to have somebody who wants to get more people interested in keeping and breeding the species that the rest of the world can only dream about owning.

[Gbang]

absolutely gorgeous!!!! australian natives are so underrated

[durro68]

So nice! Thanks for sharing.

[Baccus]

Thank you everyone, I will try to get a better video of them sparing and dancing about, the trouble is prediciting when they might decide to do a little show.