Breeding Banded Rainbowfish (Melanotaenia Trifasciata) In The Aquarium

Location

This species lives in reservoirs in the northern part of Australia: in Gulf of Carpentaria, York Cape (Archer and Mc Ivor Rivers) and Northern Territory (Melville and Groote Eylandt Islands, Mary River and Arnhem Land). These reservoirs are small creeks, streams, rivers and tributaries with sandy or stony and gravely substrate and clean water. The fish adapted to live in the rainy and dry seasons.

Body description

Colour of the fish is variable and it depends on their habitat, diet and water conditions. Colour of the body can be yellow, red, violet, blue or green with light under-side (usually it is silvery-light blue or gold). There is a horizontal, black or navy blue stripe with thick, white border along the lateral line. The dorsal, anal and caudal fins are red, orange or yellow. The species has big eyes and two dorsal fins. Male has clearly visible notch between his head and his body, hump on his forehead and elongated rays of the first dorsal fin. He is also larger and more colourful than female.

Temperament and behaviour

This is a shoal species. Fish prefers to live in a group of 6 minimum. They are less timid and shy and males show their best colours when they compete for females attention. You should have more females than males or the same amount of each sex. Males can torment females during the spawning season. This is an active, peaceful, intelligent, inquisitive fish which likes to be on the move. It swims very fast from one end of the aquarium to another. You shouldn't overfeed these fish because they may get ill (intestinal disease). You should feed them 2-3 times per day with the amount of food that the fish can eat within 5 minutes. The food should be varied.

Aquarium decoration

This species prefers a spacious tank. Aquarium should have space to swim, a lot of plants, floating plants, dimmed light, hiding-places among roots, branches, effective filtration system with medium water flow, soft substrate. The fish need clean water so you should systematically do a partial water changes the substrate cleaning. You must cover the aquarium because this fish may jump out. This species is sensitive to sudden changes in water parameters and the young fish are very sensitive to accumulation of chlorine. You should keep these fish with similar size species and also with other rainbowfish.

Breeding

This is an oviparous species. Breeding these fish is very easy when they are sexually mature. Courtships of the fish are very vehement before the spawning. Male spreads his dorsal and anal fins in order to increase his attractiveness and his body size. Then he persistently chases female. The fish spawn usually in the morning for a few days. Female lays portion of eggs on the leaves of plants every day up to 200-400. The roe is sticky. Male often protects the eggs. The eggs hatch after about a week but it depends on water temperature. You must feed the offspring immediately with ciliate. When the fry grows bigger you may feed it with artemia, micro worms or liquid food for offspring.