Fish Care Description
Freshwater
The Three-Lined Pencilfish (Nannostomus Trifasciatus) has an elongated gold colored body with a black line running from nose to tail and two thinner black lines along side it, with the addition of bright red splashes on all the fins and some on the body which are very eye catching and make attractive additions to any aquarium. When the male reaches maturity their colors are much brighter than the female and they are slimmer is size.
They are native to Guyana, Peru, Bolivia and Brazil where they live in small rivers and swampy areas.
Housing
These tetras should be kept in shoals of around 10 or more and as they are quite peaceful sedate fish they can be mixed with other fish of a similar nature. The tank should be no smaller than 70 liters and should have subdued lighting and a dark substrate to show off the striking colors of the fish.
The water should be soft to slightly acidic with a temperature of (7.4-8.2) with a ph of (6.8-7.5) they like to swim in the middle to upper surface of the tank and like to rest on the surface at night.
Feeding
The Three-lined Pencilfish have very small tubular shaped mouths so would need to be fed small foods, even flaked food would need to be crushed into smaller bite size pieces, they enjoy baby Daphnia,Brine shrimp, small Bloodworms and Microworms.
