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Common Name: Harlequin Rasbora
Scientific Name: Rasbora Heteromorpa (Duncker, 1904)
Family: Cyprinidae .
Distribution: Asia: Thailand (Narathiwat southwards) to Sumatra, Indonesia.
Size: 6cm
Diet: These fish are omnivores and will accept most dry and live foods. Try to give them a variety of different foods live brine shrimp, pellets, Spirulina, flakes etc.
Water Temperature: 22-25degrees Centigrade
Water Chemistry: A gh & kh of less than 10 is best.
pH: pH 5.0-7.5
Life Span: Approx 6 years.
Tank requirements: The tank should have a length of at least 60cm use a dark substrate and some covering provided with floating plants with dense planting along the back and sides of the tank.
Sexing: The males tend to be thinner than the females and males tend to have a straight black wedge whereas the females' wedge curves towards the front slightly
Breeding: Harlequins are one of the more difficult aquarium fish to breed, but if you have the right conditions they will spawn. When selecting fish to breed, females should be 10-20 months old, older than this and the females will often not spawn and two males should be kept for each female.
The depth of the water should be lowered to around 13-20cm, the ph around 5.3-5.7 and a GH of less than 3, the temperature should be 24.5-26.5 degrees celcius.
Once the tank has been set up and is running, the fish should be introduced to the tank in the late ofthe day as spawning occurs in the early morning and is caused by the rising of the sun. The spawning process takes anything from 2-3 hours and as many as 100-250 eggs can be deposited on the underside of broad leaved plants and the fry should be free swimming within 24 hours.
Description: There are more than 5 dozen different species of Rasboras but the Harlequin is one of the most popular. The colour is a reddish copper body with a black wedge from below the dorsal fin back as to have a triangular shape with red fins
Author - Paul Fox
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