Description
Rasbora borapetensis comes from a huge range naturally, including Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, peninsular Malaysia, and China, and it has also spread to other regions in the surrounding countries. These nano fish have muted golden bodies, with a dense yet thin black lateral line, and a bright yellow line above it, both ending in a bright red spot on the caudal peduncle, and extending out into the tail fin. These have earned it names such as the blackline rasbora and the red-tailed rasbora.
Because of its extensive wild range, you might be able to assume that it is highly adaptable to changing water parameters, although it is typically found for slow-moving to still ponds, reservoirs, canals, and the like. In your aquarium, you can keep this nano fish in fairly ph neutral water, and a large range of hardness, from almost undetectable up to about 250ppm gh. The filter does not need to turn over a lot of water, due to these fish usually coming from still water, but you still want a filter that is strong enough to not leave any stagnant water in the aquarium. A planted tank, or even a highly aquascaped tank, would be a great place to house these undemanding fish, in an aquascape especially because the fish are just flashy enough to be seen, and yet plain enough to not detract from an aquascape. In fact, the black and gold horizontal stripes would most likely complement the plants of a dutch style aquascape perfectly.
When choosing tankmates for this nano rasbora, make sure that there is nothing that would make a quick meal out of them, since they do cap out right around 2”. Similarly sized peaceful fish such as other rasboras, tetras, livebearers, or dwarf rainbows would be great. Keep in mind that this fish is going to be most comfortable in a larger group of its own kind, so you should start out with no less than six of them. Ours are currently about an inch in size, and you may expect them to nearly double, as well as color up much more strongly. More is always going to allow them to show more natural behavior as well as coloration, but do make sure that you get a large enough school for them to be comfortable. If you want to mix them into a community tank, then you might also consider species that it may be found with in the wild. Due to its large native range this fish would be a great schooling fish for a biotope aquarium, as it does not limit you too much in choosing other livestock. This fish is also a great choice to be a dither fish if you need them for that job, as they will typically just swim around in fairly open water, and it does not have intense coloration that may draw the ire of more protective or territorial fish. These schooling fish do not ship individually bagged.
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