Micropoecilia parae and melanzona

Micropoecilia parae

This is another interesting livebearer from the "North-east" corner of South-America

It comes in 5 morphs, red, blue, yellow with a horizontal stripe and colourless  parae and a red blue and yellow melanzona form.

I would simplify this by saying it comes in 3 main forms

the parae with horizontal stripes in red, yellow and blue

the melanzona with vertical "tiger" stripes in red, yellow and blue and

the colourless form.

The females breed true to the colour of the male she last mated with so the females don't belong to any colour morph. Ex. If mated with a red male she would carry only red males, if next she mated with a blue male, the next brood would contain only blue males.

I kept the melanzona red tiger morph, specially ordered from imazo.se via one of my local petshops, but they kept dying on me. 

I bought 13 and after a few weeks was left with one single female.

Sadly this pregnant female seems to have droped fry without me noticing it, and then looked poorly and died. I was hoping to get red melanzona males from her, but no such luck.

Then by chance I came accross some blue parae in a petshop in Lillestrøm and got 2 pairs

They are doing great, and I keep them in a heated tank that I've let grow with algae as I got a tip from a breeder in Guyana who keeps his outside in a green algae tank, that they need to have access to algae in order to forage and thrive.

No fry yet, but I am carefully optimistic.