N'dendé. Wild male.
Photo courtesy of Ed Pürzl.

N'dendé. Wild female.
Photo courtesy of Ed Pürzl.

After Jean Henri Huber, French ichthyologist & author of many killifish publications.

Radda A.C. & Pürzl E. 1981.

Aplocheilus (Epiplatys) huberi sp. nov., eine neue Hechtlingsart aus südwest Gabun.

Aquaria 28: p 193-199, 8 figures, map.

6·5 cm

D = 9-10, A = 14-15, D/A = +10, ll = 29-30 (+3) (Radda & Pürzl 1981)

n = 24, A = 20 (Radda & Pürzl 1981)

multifasciatus

• Aplocheilus (Epiplatys) huberi Radda & Pürzl 1981
• Aplocheilus huberi Scheel 1990

• Diboumba
• Douengui - GJA 00 / 22
• Lébamba
• GEM 06 / 6 - Mandilou - aff.huberi
• GJS 00 / 20
• GJS 00 / 22 - Douengui (NE Ndend'e)
• PEG 93/2 - Bandi
• GEM 06 / 6 - Mandilou

Douengui - GJS 00 / 22 - From material kindly sent to me by Mogens Juhl - "In an area near a river that was divided into two, each just as wide as the main river, but half as deep. It was still some 10 meters wide, but this part was possible to enter.
The area was very fertile and beautiful, lots of vegetation emersed and submerse. The measurements showed 224 my indicating a lot of nutrition in the water compared to the other localities that we had visited.
This was the only place where we discovered large amounts of submerse aquatic plants of many different sorts.
Large areas with blooming Crinum and also the only Anubias barteri in large groups submerse.
This type had wrinkled leaves. Aponogeton were also abundant and a lot of other aquatic plants that we did not know.
Here we also found very many Epiplatys huberi and of course A.primigenium.
In the open waters large schools of a species of Plataplochilus were swimming around, it was really an experience to walk among these and being able to collect whatever you wished.
The water temperature was 23·3 C, pH 6·95 and conductivity 224 microseimens. Altitude 90 meters".

N'Dendé, situated on the road towards Lebamba in the Ngunié Province, southwestern Gabon. The biotope was a forest creek.
There is some confusion as to the exact location. Radda & Pürzl in there 1985 book call it "25km east north east of Ndéndé on the road to Lébamba". In Huber's Kili-Data it is 28kms east of Diboumba to Lébamba". Eberl considered it should be 12kms south west of Lébamba.

Mogens Juhl collected this sp. from N'Dendé to Mouila. - "Everywhere we tried to collect killies on the way to Mouila we found E.huberi. All went into alcohol for the museum. It seemed that there was very little variation among the different populations, not more than you find within one population".

http://homepage.uibk.ac.at/homepage/c102/c102mr/epiplaty/huberi.htm

Rainforest creeks & small rivers on the southwestern slopes of the Du Chaillu Massif.
Sympatric sp. include A.spec.aff.primigenium, Plataplochilus aff.cabindae, Ctenopoma nanum, different barbs and Phractura catfish.

PEG 93/2 - Stream 1·5 m wide & 20cm deep. Clear, slightly brownish water. No measurements of water taken but this other areas in this vicinity measured 30-50 µ S, temperature 23-25°C, pH 6 - 6·7. Sympatric sp. in this location - (A form of) A.exigoideum, Plataplocheilus cabindae, Barbus sp.. Plants (Aponogeton sp.) were found in the stream as it was open to daylight by the roadside.

First collected by Dr.J.H.Huber in 1978 in Congo Brazzaville. The specimens used as types were collected by Hofmann & Pürzl in June 1980 in a small forest stream situated on the southwestern slopes of the Gabon Chaillu Massif.

The population from N'dendé was collected on the 22nd June 1980 by Hofmann & Pürzl on there GHP 80 trip towards the town of Lebamba, southwest Gabon (GHP 80 / 20).

Guido Passaro & Wolfgang Eberl collected young fish in July 1993 at Bandi, 32 km east of Mouila towards Yéno, Gabon. This was a stream called Moyambi. Fish were returned to Germany & bred but no photos of wild fish are thought to have been taken.

In a trip from December 25th - January 6th, 1996 Guido Passaro & Wolfgang Eberl again collected (10 young fish) at the same stream location. Eberl kept the fish & later passed on 2 pairs to Norbert Dadaniak & Reinhard Lütje. Reinhard photographed the fish. Other fish from Eberl were passed to Karl-Heinz Genzel for breeding.

Collected in July/August 2000 by Robert Guggenbühl, Pascal Sewer & Mogens Juhl at locations GJS 00/20, 22, 23, 24, 26

I have kept this species on a couple of occaisions. The first pair refused to lay but the second pair layed quite freely in 100% rainwater. The tank received full natural daylight. Reports suggest they are difficult to breed & not prolific. My pair layed regularly in top & bottom mops but eggs were few in number. Water incubation took about 14 days. Sexual maturity is reported to take 7-8 months.

Jaroslav Kadlec in BKA newsletter No.212, April 1983 put an article together on this sp. He bred them in a 20 litre tank, pH 6-7, DH 5-15 although these measurements were not regarded as critical. Floating plants were included in the setup. They were not observed to be a territorial sp.
After experimentation a water temperature of 24-28°F was used with a pH of 6·3-6·8, DH 5-8. Seperating the sexes (conditioning) & putting them together for a few days seems to work well.
Eggs hatch according to temperature. At 21°C they take 20-25 days. At 25°C it takes 13-18 days. At 29°C they take 9 days to hatch. Newly hatched fry are 4·5mm long. These remain at the water surface.
It was noted that when reaching 1 cm in length fry become cannibalistic towards younger fry (15-20 days old).
Dark bands start appearing on the sides of the fish at 4 weeks. At 3 months the fish can reach 3 - 3·5 cm in length. Sexual maturity is attained at 4-5 months but full size can be a further 3-5 months on.

Eberl & Passaro had problems trying to breed wild fish in harder water of 18°.

This species is reported not to harm fry in the breeding tank. I removed eggs from the mop & incubated them in a seperate container so I didn't find any fry in the breeding tank.