Breeding Gold Harlequin Rasboras...?

[spinjector]

Hi guys, I am looking for two pieces of advice about Gold Harlequin Rasboras...

The first is easy: does anyone have any advice on breeding Rasboras? I have never bred fish before, and I would like to give it a try with these Raz's that I have.

Second: I have about a dozen fish, that when I purchased them, were labeled as "Gold Harlequin Rasboras". BUT - lately, all the fish stores around here have been selling something that is labeled the same, but looks *nothing* like the fish that I have. The fish I have are beautiful - they look sort of like a Harlequin, but the pink part is a vibrant reddish fluorescent orange. And the scales are are beautiful irridescent golden yellowish color... All-in-all a beautiful fish, but again, nothing like the current years model...

So this is why I want to breed these critters... The store I got them at can't (won't?) help me much regarding the differences, so I figured that if I can make the ones I have make a few more, I will be all set.

Oh, and how do I tell the girls from the boys in this species...?

Thanks!

PS - I just searched Google for "gold harlequin rasbora", and it only gave me *five* pages on the whole internet...! Is this a rare fish, or something? I am starting to wonder...

 

[quakermomma]

Sounds like an interesting fish! Do you have pictures? I love the harlequin rasbora with the traditional t-bone coloration, but yours sound very exotic.

As for breeding, I don't have any experience, except for reading from the internet and a few books in the library. Mine would flirt for a day or two in the evening right after a massive water change, but I was never able to find any fry or eggs. Sounds like for standard harlequins at least, it is pretty difficult to get them to spawn successfully. It's been a while, but I think that they are egg layers and need a large, curved leaf plant. The female will swim around upside down with her belly up agains the underside of the leaf to lay the eggs, and the male will dart around her and fertilize them. However, It's common for the eggs to fall off the leaf, be eaten by the parents, or simply not hatch any visible fry, from what I read. I think it's recommended to use a special breeder tank with no gravel and suitable plants, but like I said, it's been a while and you probably know most of this already.

The sexes can be tough to tell apart - the greatest difference is that mature female will gradually get larger abdomens as they fill with eggs which causes the underside of the black t-bone shape to appear more curved. Males have more of a straight line on the underside. But even this is really hard to tell, especially when they are young.

Best of luck to you in this - they are a lovely fish! Please keep us posted on how things go for you and share a picture if you can!

-Faith

 

[mykidsmylife]

I have 5 Golden Harlequin Rasboras and 3 "normal" Harlequin. I really like them. They are a great schooling fish that seem to school in the upper part of the tank.

Live aquaria has some info on them including some breeding info.
http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/prod_Display.cfm?pCatId=1577

My Golden look just like them. Look on the site it has several other rasboras listed too and may help you indentify them.

Good luck. Let us know if you get them to spawn.

 

[spinjector]

They are a great schooling fish that seem to school in the upper part of the tank. Live aquaria has some info on them including some breeding info. http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/prod_Display.cfm?pCatId=1577

Yes there are great midwater schoolers. That put together with their beautiful coloration are the main reasons I like them so much - they don't hide.

I checked out that link at Liveaquaria, and that is not the fish I have. That is the same "gold harlequin" the stores all have lately, and it's very different from the ones I have. I don't think it's a very pretty fish. The colors are kind of muddled, and it looks deformed - the species seems to have a natural distended abdomen, like those goofy "potbelly" Mollies.

I will keep you guys posted if I find out what they are.

 

[mykidsmylife]

Can you post a picture?? It seems rather interesting!

Psst...btw. I think my Golden Rasbora's are rather pretty :

 

[yohkos]

Hey! I like my "goofy" pot bellied mollies too. :hang:

 

[ttan]

When mine where spawning, I have them in a 10 gallon with some floating plants and some on the bottom. They were fake at the time. I kept only rasboras in the tank. At the time I beleive I have 3 females and 4 males. I was giving them water changes everyday and the tank didn't have a light on it, so it was dim. This was about a year ago, and I wasn't trying to breed them but quarantine them. This was pretty much the only time they really mated.

 

[spinjector]

I FOUND IT!!! I FOUND IT!!!

I poked around with Google some more - but this time I searched for "gold harlequin rasboras" - with an "s" on the end this time... And I got a whole bunch more results. It turns out that the fish I have were mis-labeled at the LFS. I seem to have a variety I've never heard of before. It's called a "Lambchop Rasbora"... (not "Porkchop"!) According to the species info I found, it's naturally ocurring and not a hybrid. And they like really acidic water, too: 6-6.5 PH.

Has anyone ever heard of this species?

Google pointed me to this discussion thread in another forum where this exact dilemma I am having was being discussed, and it's where I found the name "Lambchop Rasbora":

http://www.aquarium-forums.com/general/Gold_Harlequin_Rasboras_145679.html

Then I Googled around some more, and found this excellent picture of the species. This is a good picture; it shows the colors very well, but because it's a picture, it cannot show how vibrant the colors are under a CF aquarium light (mine is a Coralife 20" 23 watt 6700K fixture). These fish are high/midwater schoolers, and look great in numbers because of their colors. They hang out in the wide open spaces above the plants under the lights, occassionally dashing about for reasons known only to them:

http://www.fishbase.org/Summary/SpeciesSummary.php?id=27073

 

[ttan]

I have heard of them before, and when I first read your post I thought you were talking about this species. i've been looking for them, but I haven't come across them yet other than online. They cost too much online for my tastes. heteromorpha Espei or Trigonostigma espei or even some call them black harlequin rasboras but you prolly already gathered that from your google searches. They're a neat fish and I wish I had a few. Good luck raising them. BTW You might want to look into blackwater extract for breeding.