Pterophyllum scalare green
Pterophyllum scalare green, or as it is also called - green angel, is a very beautiful fish. It got its name because of the golden-green coloring of its body. Well, the name "angel" was given to her by the British. In natural conditions, the green scalaria lives in tributaries of the Amazon and Rio Negro rivers. The fish can be found in quiet pools, densely overgrown with reeds, with rocky shores. These fish are undemanding and can be kept even by novice aquarists.
Pterophyllum scalare green has a flattened body, thanks to which the fish can maneuver freely between dense plant thickets. The body is colored in golden green. The dorsal and anal fins are long. Pelvic fins are threadlike. Throughout the body stretches transverse bands of dark color. The eyes are red. Sexual differences are poorly expressed. Males have a more rounded forehead and are larger. The size of fish is about 15 cm in length and up to 25 cm in height.
To contain Pterophyllum scalare green requires an aquarium of 80 liters, densely planted with a variety of tall plants. At the bottom, you need to place grottoes and large stones. Care should also be taken to ensure free space for swimming fish. Scalarias can easily be kept in a common aquarium with other species commensurate in size fish. Should keep in mind that, despite their calm disposition yet scalarians are predators by nature and often attack smaller fish in the aquarium. Scalarias plants are not harmful.
Water parameters: temperature 24-26 ° C, hardness dH 5-20°, pH 6,0-7,5. Requires effective filtration and increased aeration of water, as well as its weekly replacement of 1/3 of fresh water.
Pterophyllum scalare green does not like bright light, so if bright lights are installed in the aquarium, this problem can be solved by placing floating bushes of plants, such as pistia, on the water surface, which will serve as a natural light filter. The duration of the daylight hours of about 10 hours a day.
You can feed the fish with minnows, Tubifex, Cyclops and Daphnia, both live and frozen. A vegetable supplement to the feed is desirable. Also, the fish are not averse to a variety of dry food in the form of flakes and pellets containing spirulina. Feed the fish 2 times a day, giving as much food at a time, so that the fish can eat it immediately.
Reproduction
Pterophyllum scalare green reaches sexual maturity at the age of 10-12 months.
A pair of producers are transferred into a spawning aquarium of about 40 liters. Spawning stimulated by raising the water temperature to 28 ° C and the daily substitution of 1/10th of the aquarium water with fresh. In nerestovike necessary to plant a few bushes of Cryptocoryne, on the leaves of which the female will meta spawn.
Some aquarists as the spawning substrate using a piece of glass or plastic in green, which mimics the leaf plant. In this case, if after spawning planned to move the substrate with the eggs in another aquarium, it will be easy to do. If the clutch is expected to leave with the producers, the aquarium should be quite a few bushes of plants, as parents are constantly moving their fry from one bush to another, thereby preventing the newly born fry were not long near the dead eggs and thus did not fall ill.
The fry are fed with artemia.
The life expectancy of Pterophyllum scalare green is about 15-20 years.
