Breeding Hengel's Rasbora (Trigonostigma Hengeli) In The Aquarium

Location

This freshwater species lives in slow-moving rivers, streams, tributaries, wetlands, swamps with a lot of plants and covered by dense forests in Indonesian islands – mainly Jambi and Sumatra. These reservoirs have "black water" with a lot of tree leaves, twigs and tannin.

Body description

Colour of the fish is silvery-olive with clear fins. Body of the fish is highly transparent. There is a black stripe along the lateral line – from base of the dorsal fin to the base of the tail. This wedge-shaped stripe tapers towards the tail. This stripe also has yellow-orange border at the top. This species is often confused with Harlequin rasbora and Lambchop rasbora despite the fact that they have significant differences in colors. Female is thicker in the ventral parts.

Temperament and behaviour

It is shoal, shy and very active species. Fish prefers to live in a group of 6 minimum. The fish have brilliant colors when they have varied diet and suitable water conditions. This species has small mouth so you must feed it with very fragmented food. You should keep these fish with similar size and temperament species e.g. tetras, dwarf cichlids, other rasboras, botias, corydoras, small catfish, small gouramies, neaon tetras etc.

Aquarium decoration

The aquarium should have a lot of plants at the back and on the sides (e.g. java moss, anubias, cryptocoryne, microsorum), dark substrate, dimmed light, floating plants. you may also keep these fish in the "black water" biotope tank which should have sandy substrate, roots, branches, dry leaves of oak or beech (you may leave them in aquarium till they completely decompose), dimmed light, floating pieces of wood. The fish needs space to swim and filtration system with minimum water flow.

Breeding

This is an oviparous species. It can breed in the general tank but you should do it in a separate aquarium if you want to increase the efficiency of the breeding. Breeding tank should have plants with wide leaves, dimmed light or no light, very soft water with pH=5.5-6.0 and 28°C of water temperature. You should feed them with plenty of live food before the spawning. You also do about 50% partial water changes on cooler water when males are more colourful and females are thicker. Next you transfer pair of the fish to the breeding aquarium in the evening. The fish should spawn next day, in the morning. Initially the fish starts intense courtships among plants. Finally male turns female upside-down near the leaves of plants and she lays portions of eggs. The eggs stick to the underside of the leaf. The parents can eat the roe, so you should remove them after spawning. The eggs hatch after 1-2 days. The fry starts to swim and feed 1 week later.