Hemigrammus ulreyi

classification

order: Characin
family: Characidae (tetras)

size

males just under 2 inches, females about 2.5 inches

dimorphism

in adult specimens, females are noticably larger. Often they are plumper.

pair of Hemigrammus ulreyi

the species

For some strange reason, the wrong photo for H. ulreyi has been circulating throughout aquarium literature. For instance, the very first edtion of Baensch Atlas (vol.I) got it right, but later editions have inserted the photo of a bland-looking fish. Perhaps this error emerged because the wrong photo was used in Characoids of the World. (That photo, from TFH archives, was shot years earlier by Harold Schultz.)

So I asked Stan Weitzman about the confusion. He informed me that the correct H. ulreyi is the species which I'm showing here.

my experience

These fish are rather hardy and certainly long-lived.

breeding

This is supposed to be a challenging species to breed. A friend of mine claims that an older pair of his probably spawned because one day the plump female was plump no longer -- but, of course, the fish were not in a set up for saving the eggs, so he has no other proof. But I do recall reading somewhere that this fish probably needs to be a few years old before it will spawn -- atypical for the tetras I have spawned.

acquisition

This species is found from time-to-time at pet stores which bring in more than the "bread-and-butter" species.