Archivarium 2004

[gwtaylor]

Hello there, I just recently found some scarlet Badis at one of my local fish stores after I had ordered some off of the net. I am pretty sure I got one male and one female from the LFS, but who knows what I will get offline. Anyways, here are the questions:

I have 5 on order and 2 already, so when they get here will a 29 gallon be enough for them? I understand they can be somewhat territorial when in an all species tank.

I mentioned the species tank, but they will actually be sharing some room with 4 Corys and about 7 or 8 Ghost shrimp. Question is, when (hopefully they do) they breed will the ghost shrimp or corys eat the eggs? I know the father is supposed to guard them, but if they had the chance would they? I didn't know ghost shrimp were considered predators, but when feeding the Badis some live black worms I noticed one of the GS grab a worm and swim off with it.

How fast do these guys grow? The two I bought recently seem to be pretty young and are probably just nearing an inch long. They don't seem that worried about claiming any territory for themselves, but maybe that is because there is really no competition except for the slow corys on the bottom.

Does anyone here have any information or reccomendations about keeping Badis badis or Badis burmanicus (I think that the name for the scarlet ones)?

Thanks in advance,

Grant

[gwtaylor]

Anyone have any information for me? Thanks again!

[benedictj]

More likely, can you tell us something about them?

Seriously, though, I don't think many folks have kept them. In fact, in all my rambling through shops, I have seen Badis Badis once- great looking little fish and they were mingling nicely with Apistogramma sp. Blue Steel (though it was a very large tank). Of course, I had nil in terms of space.

Anyway, here's what I have heard/read-
-They are picky eaters, often only taking live and frozen food
-If you have moderately soft, acidic water they are fairly easy to breed
-Male fish take a very active role in raising fry
-They're fairly mild in temperment and can be down right shy.
-There was some debate for a while over where they belonged in terms of scientific classification. Originally, they tried to fit them into the dwarf Cichlid families, but since there were obvious physical differences and due to their relative geopgraphical isolation in comparison to all of the other soft/medium water dwarves, they were excluded and reclassified.

Hope that helps. I tried goggling around 'keeping Badis Badis', there a few articles and a thread over at the Krib that might be helpful, although there certainly wasn't a treasure trove of info out there.
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Best,

Jake