Sumatran barbeque in your aquarium

In the wild, the Sumatran barbus lives in Southeast Asia - in slowly flowing rivers and lakes of islandsSumatra and Kalimantan, in Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia. In Europe, it was delivered in 1935, to Russia - twelve years later, and since that time the Sumatran barbs has become one of the most popular inhabitants of aquariums.

The Sumatran barbule is not a very large fish,usually reaching seven to seven inches in length. The barbus has a dense body of oval form, compressed laterally. The barbs scales have a light brown color with four vertical black strips. Thanks to this coloring, this fish is sometimes called brindle or a four-lane barbeque. The male barbs are brighter than the females. Sometimes there are other colors of barbs, but fish with "non-standard" colors (mutant barbs) were artificially removed.

The Sumatran barbus is a schooling fish. Therefore it is better to buy several barbs at once. If your aquarium has only a couple of barbs, they can "bully" other inhabitants. But if the barbs five or more, they gather in flocks with a certain hierarchy and other fish are virtually untouched. Barbuses prefer to keep in the middle and lower layers of water.

Despite the fact that the barbs are getting along fairly well with other species of fish of the same size, their It should not be kept together with fish that have long or veil fins (Sumatran barbs can bite them), as well as with inactive little fish, unable to stand up for themselves.

Optimal conditions for the maintenance of Sumatran barbs - an aquarium with a volume of 60 liters (3-5 liters per onebarbeque), the length of the aquarium is not less than 80 cm. Optimal water temperature is 22-24 ° C, pH is 6.5-7.0, stiffness is up to 17 °. It is necessary to provide filtration and aeration, but do not get carried away: barbs do not like a strong current. Also, every week, it is necessary to replace up to 25% of the water volume. Lighting the Sumatran barbeque prefers artificial.

As a primer for the aquarium use a darkpebbles - on the bright ground the coloring of the barbs becomes paler. It is necessary to plant the aquarium densely with living plants (preferably small-leaved plants), and snags and stones can be used as decorations. But do not overdo it: these mobile fish need a lot of space for swimming. If you create comfortable conditions for your barbs, they will live 3-4 years.

The Sumatran barboy eats both live and dry food with pleasure. But keep in mind that in his diet must necessarily include herbal supplements. If the barbeque lacks a vegetable feed, itmay begin to suffer from obesity or other diseases. In addition, with a lack of vegetable feed barbs begin to look for it themselves and are taken to pluck young plants.

Ideally, the diet of Sumatran barbs should be25-30% consist of vegetable feed (nettle, dandelion, lettuce, wolfia, riccia, black bread, oatmeal), 10-15% of dry mixed fodder, and the rest of it will be combined and live fodder. From live forages it is possible to give a barbeque of bloodworms, corotra, daphnia, tubule. Young fish are fed every three to four hours, adults - often in small portions. Once a week you need to arrange adult fish fasting day.

The Sumatran barboy is prone to overeating and obesity, so you can not overfeed it - it is better to give too little food than too mucha lot of. The amount of food should be such that the fish completely eat it for a couple of minutes. If the extra food remains, it is better to remove it immediately from the aquarium.

The Sumatran barbeque is very funny, cute and unpretentious aquarium fish, an excellent choice for beginners aquarists.