THE BEST OF Bedotia
You don’t need many Madagascar rainbows to start your own shoal, writes Gabor Horvath. Here’s how you could breed this beautiful and bubbly species.
MENTION RAINBOWFISH and most people will think of the colourful Melanotaenia species from Australia and the nearby isles. Meanwhile, many aquarists don’t even know that there’s a closely related genus living in the waters of Madagascar. It’s hard to find an aquatic store without at least one aquarium full of various
Melanotaenia and — in many unfortunate cases — their hybrids, but you need to search a bit longer to spot a Bedotia.
That’s why when I recently stumbled upon three juvenile Madagascar rainbowfish, Bedotia madagascariensis, I purchased them after only the shortest hesitation, and the only reason I hesitated at all was because rainbows are shoaling fish that fare better in numbers.
But then I brooded on my fond memories of keeping Bedotia over the decades, and the trio came home with me.
Not the fish you think
Let me take a small taxonomic detour. Some readers who know a little about rainbows might be confused by the name — why
Bedotia madagascariensis and not Bedotia geayi?
For a long time, Madagascar rainbowfish were indeed sold — and sometimes are still sold — as
Bedotia geayi. This was the name
I got to know them as many years ago. And while there is actually a fish called B. geayi living in Madagascar, it isn’t the only Bedotia making its way into the hobby.
While there are many similarities between B. geayi and B. madagascariensis, probably the most confusing is the red tail colouration of the males of both species. But there are more than enough obvious differences to tell them apart.
True B. geayi have a glassy translucent part to the tail with red bordering around their caudal spot, while the tail pattern of B. madagascariensis always includes a white or golden coloured middle section with a black border.
There’re a few other members of the Bedotidae family inhabiting the waters of Madagascar, but with the exception of B. madagascariensis they’re rarely imported, if at all. It would be great if some of the other species would become selectively available in the hobby, and not just for their attractiveness. There are some really interesting fish among the Bedotia and virtually all are in danger of extinction. Agriculture and deforestation lead to a significant habitat loss and even in the remaining areas the endemic species are outcompeted or outright eaten by the introduced invasive species, like Tilapia, Eastern mosquitofish, Gambusia holbrooki, and snakeheads, Channa spp. For many Madagascar species, and not only the Bedotia, captive breeding could be their only hope for survival.
Growing on
My fish were barely 4cm when purchased, so I temporarily put them into a 90cm growing tank with an intention to move them later to a large display aquarium. One of them had red on the caudal fin and the other two had white edged tails. Based on my earlier experiences I was confident that this meant I had a male and two females.
One of the suspected females grew much quicker than the other and soon began to dominate the tank, chasing its siblings, and especially the male. Likely due to the bullying the little male decided to jump ship and ended up dried out on the floor.
The remaining two developed well on a varied diet of frozen food, live mosquito larvae and a range of quality dry food, and in a few weeks’ time they were ready to be introduced to the large community tank.
During this period the largest rainbow went through an interesting transformation to an extent that for a while I thought it was a different, but related Bedotia. It developed large blue sparkling scales on its side as opposed to the usual golden ones, while its caudal fin turned almost full black with just a hint of white around the tips. The dorsal and anal fins looked majestic with a golden orange base and wide black edges.
After a quick bit of research (and asking rainbowfish experts) it was confirmed that my fish is a colour variant of the Madagascar rainbowfish. I learned that with
B. madagascariensis being polymorphic (occurring in two or more forms) there are several colour forms living together in the wild. Some of the males, just like mine, have no red colours on their caudal fins at all. This was all news to me, as I always thought that the red colour was a tell-tale sign of gender.
The accidental spawn
Despite learning this new fact, I was still dubious about the sexes until one day I decided to revamp the display tank. I took out some overgrown Anubias plants and moved them temporarily to a fry tank