New Guinea blue-eye

Care at a glance

Overview

Keep a school of eight or more in around 55 liters, warm and thickly planted. It behaves like the rest of the genus: peaceful, busy in the upper water, with males displaying at each other through the day. Feed fine live and frozen foods with crushed flake. It scatters eggs on mops and moss, and the fry need tiny first foods. Expect to hunt for it, since imports and tank-raised stock both surface only occasionally.

In the wild

The New Guinea blue-eye lives in lowland rainforest creeks across southern New Guinea, from the Fly River in Papua New Guinea west to Etna Bay in West Papua, plus the Aru Islands. It favors warm, gentle water under forest cover. Keep it at 26 to 30 degrees Celsius with a pH of 6.5 to 8.0 in a densely planted tank with floating cover and mild flow.

Good to know

Pseudomugil novaeguineae was described by Weber in 1907 from material collected on an early Dutch expedition, making it the first blue-eye described from New Guinea. It reaches about 4.5 centimeters, larger than most of the West Papuan species. Males show a red leading edge on the first dorsal fin with pale fin margins. Little has been published on its wild ecology, and it remains rare in collections.

Did you know

This was the first blue-eye ever described from New Guinea, named in 1907 from fish brought back by a Dutch expedition, decades before most of its relatives were discovered in the 1980s and 1990s.

Related species

• Popondetta blue-eye

  Pseudomugil connieae

  2 in (5 cm)11 gal (40 L)75–82°F (24–28°C)
• Ivantsoff's blue-eye

  Pseudomugil ivantsoffi

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

  Pseudomugil pellucidus

  1.6 in (4 cm)11 gal (40 L)75–82°F (24–28°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)