Golden pheasant

Care at a glance

Overview

This is a big, aggressive annual reaching about 8 cm, so keep a single pair in a 54 litre or larger species tank at 20 to 24 C and soft water of pH 6.0 to 7.0, with a little salt sometimes added. It will bully or eat other fish, so house it alone. Feed meaty live and frozen foods such as earthworm, bloodworm, blackworm, and brine shrimp. Spawn over a deep peat layer and store the eggs damp for around six to seven months.

In the wild

It lives in temporary swamps and pools in the coastal forest zone of West Africa that dry out in the dry season. Males are large and intensely coloured in orange, red, and blue with dark fin edges, and they are aggressive. Give it a dark, soft-bottomed species tank with cover and a very secure lid.

Good to know

Callopanchax occidentalis is an annual killifish and one of the larger, more aggressive West African species, formerly placed in the genus Roloffia. It is a bottom spawner whose eggs are buried in the substrate and need a long incubation. Best hatching comes about seven months after the eggs are set to rest.

Did you know

Its eggs need one of the longest rests of any aquarium killifish, sitting in barely damp peat for about seven months before they are ready to hatch.

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