D39 behavior question

[anewbie]

D39 is another species i'm seeing a lot of people sell that are wc - mostly it is their general availability that has me writing this post. I just want to verify some information - i found an article on Tom's website that seem to suggest they are a blackwater species - but perhaps not pure blackwater given their off trail location - generally found around 82F temp (so a warm water fish); a bit on the aggressive side relative speaking and polygamous (I think not sure on this and not sure 2 females could co-exist in a 29 or 40b given their higher level of aggression). They seem to fall into the bevis group and i see photo in two different colours - the one on tom's site and others that are all blue with a bit different colouring in the fins (not sure if this is the same species at a different age or different colour morph). I guess my question is this information accurate for those who have actually kept the species. I have a 30inchx48inch aquarium and right now i'll probably shoot for a colony of bitaeniata or megapterea since these seem to be less aggressive but until i get the aquarium setup i'm always open to considering other options and having more options in case of availability also comes into play - hence my interest in D39. I hope to start setting it up 2nd week of june and populate it the first week of July in case that matters. I've spent 3 years looking into this option and playing with various 'easy' species to get a learning experience for this setup but it will be my first low ph aquarium. And yes having a species like a. pucallpaensis is cheating since they are very easy to keep - highly recommended for idiots like myself.

 

[Drayden Farci]

I got a group of 4 about 3 months ago. They arrived and I asked for 2 pair and received what I thought were 2 males, 1 female, and an unknown. The unknown turned out to be a male.

I keep them in a 33 Long (48" x 13" x 13"). Lots of leaf litter and palm fronds to break sightlines. They are with a group of 10 Hyphessobrycon sp. Red Cherry and I just added some Carnegiella strigata. The water is 100% RO with average tds under 20ppm and 0-0.1 EC, 79 degrees, slow filtration.

The largest male claimed the right side, the second male (and slightly better looking imo) claimed the left, and the third is doing fine but has no territory. So far no real signs of damage on any of them but their body weights match their hierarchical ranking...

For 2 months the female seemed less than interested in them, happy to just dart in between, over, and under leaf litter while filtering sand for food particles, gaining weight. The males, likewise, ignored her.

Last week, I noticed some flirting with the biggest male. Mutual dancing and shaking. On Sunday evening I noticed for the first time that she had dug a cave under the intersection of a chunk of driftwood and a stone. On Monday morning, there were eggs hanging under the rock. The female comes and goes but 2.5 days later, I the eggs are still there, still a light pink, and don't appear to be fuzzy.

Hopefully my brief apparent success with them will help you. In my experience 3m1f works so far, but it could go downhill at any moment, as with any species.