Indian brindled pipefish

Care at a glance

Overview

The Indian brindled pipefish is a demanding freshwater pipefish that should only be taken on with a live-food supply already running, ideally a brine shrimp hatchery. It is peaceful and social, happiest as a small group in a calm, planted tank, but it is a slow, fussy feeder that takes only small moving prey, so tankmates need choosing with great care or omitting altogether. Offer newly hatched brine shrimp, copepods, Daphnia and small mosquito larvae, little and often. It hangs low among plants in gentle flow and stresses in strong current. A mature planted tank of about 112 liters or more suits it.

In the wild

Microphis cuncalus lives in the rivers and low-salinity estuarine fringes of India and Bangladesh, common in the Meghna and the Hooghly, among weed beds in slow water. Give it a densely planted tank with fine-leaved and floating plants, root and wood cover, and gentle filtration. It does best in slightly hard, near-neutral to mildly alkaline water, about pH 6.8 to 7.8, kept warm at 23 to 28 degrees Celsius. A settled tank with plenty of hiding places keeps it calm and feeding.

Good to know

Microphis cuncalus, described by Hamilton in 1822 and known as the crocodile-tooth pipefish, reaches about 17 centimeters. It has a greenish body with dusky brindled mottling and a reddish tail, its trunk and tail built from bony rings rather than ordinary scales. Like its relatives the male broods the eggs. Captive breeding is rarely accomplished, and it is listed as a species of conservation concern.

Did you know

Its body is not scaled but sheathed in interlocking bony rings, a flexible suit of armor shared by all pipefish and seahorses that also gives the group its stiff, deliberate way of moving.

Common questions

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