Quite interesting, but not the most common aquarium fish is the bream-like barb. Beautiful, cheerful and mobile, a flock of even a few individuals can fill any aquarium, attracting the attention of any spectator. Therefore, it will be useful to tell you more about it.
What it looks like
Perhaps, in appearance it looks like a cross between bream and roach - it cannot be called a typical representative of the barb family. First of all, due to their size - he althy individuals with a balanced diet, living in a large aquarium, may well grow up to 30-35 centimeters. This already explains the relatively low popularity of fish - not every aquarium will be comfortable even with a pair of such barbs. But they prefer to live in flocks.
His body is rounded, resembling a bream or crucian, but not as elongated as most barbs. The dorsal fin is high and grey. The rest are deep red. It is to this that the red-tailed barb owes its name. The scales are large, tightly fitted, silver-mirrorcolors. For experienced fishermen, she will remind roach. However, sometimes there are individuals with a golden color.
Where lives
The habitat of this species is quite large - it lives in almost all regions of Southeast Asia: Brunei, Singapore, Indonesia, Borneo, Sumatra, Thailand and the Malay Peninsula. They prefer to live in small rivers and streams, where the number of predators is minimized. Well, to spawn, they gather in backwaters, coastal lowlands and even rice fields.
In nature, there are individuals even longer than 35 centimeters. Of course, in artificial conditions, such large fish are very rare. But life expectancy in captivity is much longer. In wild reservoirs, they live an average of 8-10 years (which is also a very long time!), And in an aquarium, with the right temperature, water and food, they can live much longer. No wonder - the absence of predators, the abundance of food - all this affects how many years the fish will live.
Choosing the right diet
In order for the fish to live long, feel great and look beautiful, it is extremely important to provide them with the right food.
In the wild, they eat surprisingly different foods. Their diet includes algae, small insects, leaves that have fallen into the water, crustaceans, fry and even carrion.
Of course, it is simply impossible to provide the same food that fish eat in the wild. However, you can recreate it quite accurately - the inhabitants of the aquarium will definitely not mind.
So, what kind of food does the barbus needtremulous golden?
Let's start with the vegetable - he loves it very much. A good choice would be duckweed (it is advisable to breed it in a special aquarium, and when taken from natural reservoirs, keep it for several days in a solution of methylene blue). You can also give finely chopped lettuce, scalded nettles and spinach. Sometimes pamper your pets with zucchini, grated on a coarse grater. Some experts even recommend introducing apples and pears into the diet from time to time, but in small quantities.
But in no case should we forget about animal feed. Raw shrimp and earthworms are suitable here - they need to be chopped coarsely. You can supplement the diet with tubifex or bloodworms. There is no need to grind them - even young fish are large enough to swallow them whole.
Feed preferably twice a day. Moreover, give as much food as will be eaten in two to three minutes. Like many other fish, the bream-like barb knows no limits and will eat food in any quantity, and this is fraught with obesity and serious illnesses - especially since it is very difficult to lose weight by actively swimming in a spacious pond at home.
How to tell a female from a male
As you can see, the bream-like barbs are surprisingly simple to keep. Reproduction is also a very interesting stage in the life of these aquarium fish. But first you need to learn to distinguish the male from the female. What should you pay attention to for this?
Alas, this breed has no unambiguous, pronounced signs. If the guppies, the swordsman and manyYou can’t confuse other sexually mature females with a male with all your desire, then here you need to spend a lot of time on observation in order to figure out with a high degree of probability who is who.
The male is usually slightly smaller. In addition, the ratio of height to length is slightly different - the male is a little narrower. Also, its fins are painted in a rich red color, while in females they are most often orange.
Get offspring
Unfortunately, little is known about the reproduction of these amazing fish - even experienced aquarists practically do not pay attention to this. However, it's hard to blame them for this. Still, in order for a flock of 5-6 adults to feel comfortable enough, it is advisable to keep them in an aquarium with a volume of 600-700 liters. Very few aquarists, including those who have been in the hobby for many decades, can boast of having a container of this size.
And the female lays from 100 to 1000 eggs at a time. Even if we assume that only half of the fry will hatch, it is hard to imagine an aquarium, the volume of which is suitable for a new generation, in an ordinary apartment or even a spacious cottage.
But in general, there is nothing difficult in breeding. If the bream-shaped barbs didn’t give you trouble when keeping, you can also try to master breeding, becoming one of the first who succeeded in this in our country.
Male and female (at least supposed) should be separated from the main flock in differentaquariums - 40-50 liters each, no less. Strongly feed them live food, increasing the water temperature by 1-2 degrees compared to normal. After about 1-2 weeks, the male's fins will become even brighter - which means it's time to put the pair in one aquarium. It is desirable that its volume is not less than 100 liters. First, the male courts the female, swims around, flirts, rubs against her. If the female is mature, then she will lay eggs - on the ground and algae leaves. Immediately after that, the male will pour milk on her, fertilizing.
Immediately after this, the fish need to be transplanted, the aquarium should be closed from direct sunlight and enhanced aeration should be turned on. Soon, tiny fry will hatch from the eggs, which from the first days of life eat the yolk of a hard-boiled egg, then switch to brine shrimp nauplii, and then enjoy bloodworms and tubifex. They grow very quickly, reaching 10 centimeters by the year.
Which aquarium suits him
As mentioned above, even a small flock will need a very large aquarium. Preferably elongated, even if not too high - like all barbs, bream-like ones love to swim a lot and quickly. Very large dimensions do not stop them either.
The optimum water temperature is between 22 and 25 degrees Celsius. But they also endure the rise in temperature in the summer heat quite easily - after all, they come from Southeast Asia, where the water often warms up to 40 degrees Celsius. Of course, on particularly hot days, you need to turn on the compressor at full capacity. Such large, and even so active fish need a lot ofthe amount of oxygen dissolved in water.
The filter also needs a very powerful one. On the one hand, due to the habit of fish eating, they are rather sloppy - they scatter food, and then do not consider it necessary to collect small pieces from the bottom. So that it does not deteriorate, you need a powerful filter. On the other hand, a sufficiently powerful filter (or even several - for such a large aquarium) will create a current. Thanks to him, not only the layers of water are mixed, ensuring a uniform distribution of air, but also comfortable living conditions are simply provided. It has already been mentioned above that in nature, bream-like barbs prefer to live in flowing streams. So such an imitation of the flow will be very useful.
How does he get along with other fish
Unlike most other breeds of barbs, the bream has a remarkably peaceful disposition. He will not bully his neighbors in the aquarium, bite off their fins and whiskers and torment them with constant attacks. Seemingly perfect neighbor.
But there is one problem. Most small fish (and in comparison with this barb, almost any fish looks small) he considers exclusively as food. So guppies, platies, neons, zebrafish and even insufficiently quick red-cheeked or Sumatran barbs may well replenish his diet.
Neighbors should be large, mobile, but at the same time not aggressive fish. Kissing gourami, shark ball, plestomus and striped platidoras will be a good choice.
Conclusion
Our articleends. In it, we tried to tell as much as possible about the bream-like barb: keeping, feeding, breeding, choosing a suitable aquarium, and much more. We hope that thanks to this, the content will not cause any difficulties.
