[ThRoewer]

... or more precisely 3.

It all started February when I got a pair Doryrhamphus excisus through a LFS. Unfortunately the female developed a damage (parasite or infection) on her mouth and ultimately starved to death.

I placed the male into my 18" cube where he did well and by now has reached full size.

Unfortunately my local store wasn't able to get more so in summer I decided to try ordering a female from LiveAquaria. Unfortunately the female they sent me was in such bad shape that it didn't make it through the second day.

After that failure I took a break to see if some would show up in local stores here, but nothing.

So my next attempt was with Blue Zoo but the female they sent me turned out to be a male. Not a big deal as I wanted another pair anyway. But now I needed 2 females.

So I ordered two more females but got a pair. Their shipment got delayed over the weekend and the male never recovered from that and died a week later.
In the meantime I had given LA another shot only to get another pair instead the 2 females I ordered.

With the second Blue Zoo male dead by then I only needed another female and tried it with Blue Zoo again. And this time they got it right.

So when all are through QT, I will have 3 pairs.
I plan to keep at least one in a small tank to try to breed them.