1 kinds · tap one for a closer look
Males are aggressive toward each other; keep one male with 2-3 females in a cool tank.
134 species in our list are a good match.
Males are aggressive toward each other; keep one male with 2-3 females in a cool tank.
Live and frozen foods such as bloodworms, daphnia and brine shrimp.
Tap a food to see what it is.
Males are larger and blue-grey with many whitish-blue spots, becoming almost black when spawning; females are smaller (to about 6 cm) and duller brownish.
Common problems. Tap one to see the signs. This is a guide, not a diagnosis.
Annual egg-burier (peat spawner) · Moderate
An annual killifish: pairs dive into peat to lay eggs. The peat is removed, partly dried and stored; the embryos rest in diapause (a pause in development that lets them survive the dry season) and hatch when the peat is put back in soft water.
One male with 2-3 females.
30 L tank with a bowl of peat and cool, soft water.
Cool water and live food.
Eggs are kept in damp peat for about 3-4 months, then wetted to hatch; fry take newly hatched brine shrimp and grow fast.
Baby brine shrimp from day one.
A cool-water annual killifish from Argentina and Uruguay. Adults die when their pools dry out, but the buried eggs survive and hatch in the next rainy season. Males are covered in pearly blue-white spots.
Franz Steindachner described this fish in 1881 as Cynolebias bellottii, from specimens taken near Buenos Aires. It is an annual killifish: adults live for a single wet season, and their eggs survive the dry months buried in mud. Hobbyists keep the species going by storing peat-incubated eggs and hatching them when water is added.
First described by Franz Steindachner in 1881. Named for Named after the Italian naturalist Cristoforo Bellotti.
17 facts checked with sources
Steindachner, 1881 (as Cynolebias bellottii; older books use that name or the misspelling 'bellotti'). Austrolebias apaii Costa et al. 2006 is now a synonym (Koerber et al. 2017). Unlike A. nigripinnis it was NOT moved to Argolebias.
Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes: Austrolebias bellottii · FishBase: Austrolebias bellottii summaryLegacy had no family; value is new.
FishBase: Austrolebias bellottii summary · Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes: Austrolebias bellottiiFishBase 7 cm TL (total length) and the hobby reference (males 7 cm, females 6 cm) agree. No Seriously Fish profile.
FishBase: Austrolebias bellottii summary · TropicalFreshwaterFish.com: Argentine Pearl / Cynolebias bellottii (hobby care reference)No Seriously Fish profile. Hobby reference 18-24 °C; FishBase 18-22 °C. Legacy 14-24: the 14 °C lower bound is not supported for keeping (though the genus tolerates cool water); keep below 25 °C.
TropicalFreshwaterFish.com: Argentine Pearl / Cynolebias bellottii (hobby care reference) · FishBase: Austrolebias bellottii summary · killi.co.uk species profile: Austrolebias nigripinnis (hobby killifish reference)Legacy 7.5 upper bound above both sources.
TropicalFreshwaterFish.com: Argentine Pearl / Cynolebias bellottii (hobby care reference) · FishBase: Austrolebias bellottii summaryLegacy had no hardness; value is new (hobby reference 2-12; FishBase 5-8). Breeding water soft, 2-5 dH (hobby reference).
TropicalFreshwaterFish.com: Argentine Pearl / Cynolebias bellottii (hobby care reference) · FishBase: Austrolebias bellottii summaryHobby reference: 38-57 L (its 24" is ~61 cm; the '51 cm' is the page's own typo). Legacy 60 L is generous. Shallow tanks preferred.
TropicalFreshwaterFish.com: Argentine Pearl / Cynolebias bellottii (hobby care reference)One male with several females; legacy trio fits.
TropicalFreshwaterFish.com: Argentine Pearl / Cynolebias bellottii (hobby care reference)Legacy 1-2 years is too long; about 1 year at most.
FishBase: Austrolebias bellottii summary · TropicalFreshwaterFish.com: Argentine Pearl / Cynolebias bellottii (hobby care reference)Aggression is male-to-male; best in a species tank.
TropicalFreshwaterFish.com: Argentine Pearl / Cynolebias bellottii (hobby care reference)Hobby reference: bottom and middle; it also spawns by diving into the substrate. FishBase: benthopelagic.
TropicalFreshwaterFish.com: Argentine Pearl / Cynolebias bellottii (hobby care reference)Mid-scale difficulty (5 of 10) on the hobby reference; FishBase calls it easy. Legacy 2 kept.
TropicalFreshwaterFish.com: Argentine Pearl / Cynolebias bellottii (hobby care reference) · FishBase: Austrolebias bellottii summaryMatches legacy 'Argentina and Uruguay'. IUCN: Near Threatened (FishBase, assessed 2021).
Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes: Austrolebias bellottii · FishBase: Austrolebias bellottii summaryFemale colour not described in detail by the fetched sources; legacy 'plain brown' left as is.
TropicalFreshwaterFish.com: Argentine Pearl / Cynolebias bellottii (hobby care reference)Diapause in A. bellottii is studied directly by Van Dooren et al. 2018 (PMC6262906): embryos can enter diapause I, II or III; in annuals diapause occurs even without drying, and hatching probability rose when embryos were rewetted a second time after two months.
FishBase: Austrolebias bellottii summary · TropicalFreshwaterFish.com: Argentine Pearl / Cynolebias bellottii (hobby care reference) · Van Dooren et al. 2018, Embryonal life histories: Desiccation plasticity and diapause in the Argentinean pearlfish Austrolebias bellottii (Ecology and Evolution; PMC6262906)Legacy 'dry 3-6 months' is longer at the top end; sources give 3-4 months. No source gives egg counts.
FishBase: Austrolebias bellottii summary · TropicalFreshwaterFish.com: Argentine Pearl / Cynolebias bellottii (hobby care reference)Legacy 'about' text confirmed.
FishBase: Austrolebias bellottii summary · TropicalFreshwaterFish.com: Argentine Pearl / Cynolebias bellottii (hobby care reference)