QuestionI have been searching online for hours now and can't find anything that is quite close to what I just bought for my tank. The fish are currently about 1" to 1.5", elongated body, larger scales (like barbs); brownish-olive above, lighter below, a black stripe running from eye to base of tail. The sticking point so far are the fins - the tail is NOT forked, it's round or fan-shaped (like a molly), transparent except for red at the base. The dorsal fin is set far back, almost exactly above the anal fin, both are rounded and in my tank they glow blue-purple with a hint of black edging; no adipose fin. Mouth is small, upturned, similar to barbs. Fish love to hide *under* things (eg. under leaves as opposed to behind plants or between stems), semi-schooling, peaceful but capable of darting speed like a danio. The absolute closest I've gotten to them so far has been something like a female or immature cherry barb in stripe and body color, except that the fins are totally wrong.
AnswerHi Heather;
I am so glad to have helped. I'd love it for you and everyone else to think I'm a "miracle worker" but the truth is I had help from one of the many web pages I have bookmarked and have used for years. I was as perplexed as you were at first. I was unaware that killie tails are similar to livebearers and it turned out to be a very important clue, as well as others you gave me. Here's a link to the "fish finder" I used;
http://www.fishprofiles.com/profiles/identifier.aspx
I chose "striped horizontal" for markings, "upturned" for mouth, "concave" for tail, and chose only "red" for color. It came up with three fish in the database and only one had a photo. BINGO! Got it on the first try!
So, there you have it. I cheated. ;-)
At Your Service;
Chris Robbins
*********************
Hi Heather;
Could it be a "Blue Fin Killie"? Here is a profile page about them with a photo;
http://www.fishprofiles.com/files/profiles/176.htm
Let me know...
At Your Service;
Chris Robbins