Breeding the Forktail Rainbowfish, Pseudomugil furcatus

By Leslie Keefer
BAP, February 2010

The forktail rainbowfish, Pseudomugil furcatus originally hails from the clear stream waters of Papua New
Guinea. It is a smaller fish, topping out at about 2 inches for a nice-sized male; females are smaller. The majority
of my males were just a little less than two inches in length, but one did approach 2 ½ inches. Many authors
indicated that they do better in slightly salty water, however it is not an absolute requirement. Neutral to slightly
alkaline pH is best. Mine were kept at room temperature, about 75°F and pH 7.4.

They are generally peaceful fish and I have never observed them being nippy toward their tankmakes;
however, their high activity makes them a poor choice as companions to shy, nervous fish. Their quick darting
movement shows off the striking yellow fins, particularly when the fish are exhibiting spawning behavior. While
both sexes have attractive bright yellow edging on their fins, males are more colorful.

I started with a pair in a ten gallon tank with a sponge filter, several floating mops, java moss and dark
substrate to make them feel secure. They were already adults when I obtained them so I checked the mops daily
for their large clear eggs but found none at first. I started adding a little salt to their water changes,
approximately 1 tsp per gallon. After a few months, I began finding one egg every other day. Several weeks
later, the pair was still only producing a few eggs per week. Since my original two were full grown adults when I
obtained them, I decided to try some younger fish so I introduced 3 new pairs into the ten gallon with the original
pair. Within a week eggs were being deposited in each mop, a few each day. Eggs were picked out of the mops
and placed in a floating mesh container within the adults’ tank. Despite the low number of eggs produced, the
hatch rate was good and only a few eggs were lost to fungus. The eggs took over two weeks to hatch and since
the adults were continually spawning, I separated fry into multiple containers based on size. I did not notice any
actual cannibalism, but since I was only finding a few eggs at a time I wanted to make sure to minimize the
possibility.

Fry were initially fed APR, liquifry and microworms, soon followed by decapsulated or live baby brine shrimp.
At two months, I also began giving them crushed flakes and frozen daphnia. Even as adults these fish have small
mouths and will actively pursue live baby brine shrimp, so I kept to smaller fare. However, they have never been
picky eaters.

I never observed any aggression from the adult males toward the females while in the breeding tank;
however I came back from vacation to find only one female left and within a few days she died as well without
any noticeable disease or damage. The males were moved to a separate tank to allow the largest fry to have the
tank to themselves. Subsequent fry were released from the floating containers into the main tank as they grew
large enough to avoid being picked on by their older siblings. The fry were miniature adults within two months
and ate vigorously.

While I have read that you can just remove mops to a separate tank to allow the eggs to hatch, the low
volume of eggs laid by these pairs meant hand picking the eggs was a quick chore. In the end, about a dozen fry
are growing out nicely. The adults’ productivity was lower than I would have expected, but that was offset by the
hatch rate and ease of raising the fry.