Ivantsoff's blue-eye

Care at a glance

Overview

Keep a group of eight or more, with females outnumbering males if breeding is the goal, in 40 liters or larger. It is timid and completely peaceful, safe even with shrimp, and needs equally gentle tankmates or a tank of its own. Males carry extended fins washed in red and yellow and display at each other through the day. Feed fine live and frozen foods with crushed flake, and give the fry tiny first foods, since they grow slowly.

In the wild

Ivantsoff's blue-eye lives in small, shaded jungle streams around Timika in southern West Papua, often in slow, tannin-stained water under overhanging plants. It shares these streams with the red neon and transparent blue-eyes. Keep it at 24 to 28 degrees Celsius with a pH of 6.8 to 7.8, dense planting, floating cover, a dark substrate, and gentle flow.

Good to know

Pseudomugil ivantsoffi was described in 1999 by Allen and Renyaan and named for Walter Ivantsoff, a lifelong researcher of the blue-eye family. Early collections were mistaken for Pseudomugil reticulatus, a species from the Vogelkop Peninsula some 900 kilometers away, before the two were separated. It reaches about 4 centimeters, scatters its eggs in fine plants, and is assessed as Endangered in the wild, so tank-bred stock matters.

Did you know

When this blue-eye first turned up it was identified as Pseudomugil reticulatus, a fish from 900 kilometers away on the far side of West Papua. It took closer study to show the Timika fish was its own species.

Related species

• Transparent blue-eye

  Pseudomugil pellucidus

  1.6 in (4 cm)11 gal (40 L)75–82°F (24–28°C)
• New Guinea blue-eye

  Pseudomugil novaeguineae

  1.8 in (4.5 cm)15 gal (55 L)79–86°F (26–30°C)
• Honey blue-eye

  Pseudomugil mellis

  1.4 in (3.5 cm)11 gal (40 L)68–82°F (20–28°C)
• Paska's blue-eye

  Pseudomugil paskai

  1.4 in (3.5 cm)11 gal (40 L)72–79°F (22–26°C)
• Red neon blue-eye

  Pseudomugil luminatus

  1.4 in (3.5 cm)11 gal (40 L)72–81°F (22–27°C)
• Swamp blue-eye

  Pseudomugil paludicola

  1.4 in (3.5 cm)11 gal (40 L)79–86°F (26–30°C)