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Salmon Red Rainbowfish (Male)
In nature the Salmon-Red Rainbowfish - Glossolepis incisus, is found in Lake Sentani which is the largest of the lakes in Irian Jaya, Indonesia.
I keep mine at 26C .
Feeding consists mainly of flake food with the occasional freeze dried brine shrimp cube.
I house my pair in a community tank where they are model citizens, I have not seen them cause any damage to plants or harass any of the other fish, which include small fish such as glowlight tetras.
They like to swim in and out of the plants and are generally slow moving laid back fish, although they can swim very fast when they want to.
As young fish they are not particularly eye catching colour wise, the male having a slight red tint in places and silver over the remainder of his body, with the female being silver/grey, they do have a nice if somewhat different shape, they have 2 dorsals.
As they mature the colours come into there own, the male having more red and the female a slight yellow.
When the fish mature and you make a large water change, the next day and for a few days afterwards, the male changes colours, first being a more intense rust red, then a yellow which finally then turns into a bright red.
The female colours up too, not as much as the male, but quite a lot in comparison to her usual shade, she will colour up a strong yellow.
After they have coloured up in this way they will begin spawning over the live plants, they continue this for a few days then slowly the colours reduce in intensity, until the next large water change.
A large water change appears to be all that is required to trigger spawning.
I have never intentionally spawned these or harvested the eggs and raised fry, as mentioned previously it is not difficult to achieve a spawning in a planted tank with a mature pair.
When buying a younger pair it is quite easy to tell the male from the female due to the shape differences, the male being larger and with a deeper body than the female, the male also having red colouration.
I have found them to be very hardy fish.
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