# Other Aquarium Forums > Freshwater Fauna > Cyprinids >  Vietnam rasboras??

## checkerboard

Anyone knows other then boraras uropthalmoides, and boraras maculatus,

what other rasboras can be found in Vietnam? other kind of fishes?

That was the 2 kinds that i observed were present when i was there. :Wink:  

Thanks! :Wink:

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## David

Errrhh just out of curiousity.....why the interest in Vietnamese Rasboras?...Vietnamese Biotope by any chance? :Smile:

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## hwchoy

Vietnam is an interesting country, in that it is long and thin, basically can roughly divide it into south as Mekong drainage type, and the north *possibly* dominated by the Yunan highland type geography. I have come across very little in way of ornamental fishes from North Vietnam, as a wild guess I would suspect it similar to the Yunan plateau/Myanmar highland, maybe lots of danio-type fishes?

In the south should be the same biotope as Cambodia/Eastern Thailand since the Mekong drains the entire lowland basin.

There is the work by Rainboth (1996) which appears to be a definitive field reference called &amp;quot;Fishes of the Cambodian Mekong&amp;quot;. I'd bet this would be very applicable to South Vietnam. One of the rasbora named is _Trigonostigma espei_ the lambchop rasbora. Since this fish is found from Southeastern Thailand through to Cambodia, you'd probably find it in South Vietnam too.

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## hwchoy

BTW did you mean you *observed* the _B. maculatus_ in the wild in Vietnam? Which part? Also there are undescribed Boraras species from the Indochina region, perhaps they look similar. Reason for the doubt is the _B. maculatus_ appears to be more Sundaic (i.e. Sumatra, Java, Kalimantan, Malay peninsula, and associated islands) in distribution. You also see this in the Trigonostigma distribution, the _T. heteromorpha_ is Sundaic, while the previously mentioned _T. espei_ is Indochinese (Mekong) in distribution.

Fishes tend to be distributed along major drainage systems. In the last ice-age (10-20,000 years ago) the Sunda region is a single landmass linked by a connected drainage system (saw a map once from the Molluscan website) so that's why our local fishes can be found all over Malaya, Sumatra and Kalimantan.

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## checkerboard

David: Yupz, i am setting up a Vietnamese biotope tank. It would be to recreate a scene where a mountain stream irrigates a paddy field. There I saw Limnophila aromatic, Java Fern, Clamps of Java moss, Cyperus helferi, blyxa japonica, c. balansae and marselia crenata. Most are growing emerse cause it is the dry season. L. Aromatic, cyperus, marselia and eleocharis are weeds in the paddy fields. L. Aromatic is also used as a herb in the village that i was at.

hwchoy: i was in central vietnam, somewhere about 80km south of Hanoi. i do not doubt that i might have observed wrongly about B.maculatus. As we all know, there seems to be variants to this species. However, the ones that i saw have certain characteristics that are strikingly similar like the location of the 3 spots of the body.

i do wonder if espei can be found there as i have pondered and done some research on this fish, but there are no conclusive evidence that states it's presence in Vietnam unfortunately. i do see some loaches there as well which i suspect to be botia sidthimunki.

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## hwchoy

mmm… need to go check out the atlas, but given Vietnam is about 1000 km end to end, 80km south of Hanoi would still fall under the Northern region, i.e. not in the Mekong part of the drainage. Thailand is actually not so far away from Vietnam as Laos is also long and narrow country.

You're right about the Boraras, in fact I have some _B. brigittae_ that has the stripe broken and some what on the way towards the _B. merah_ form. But again all of these are Sundaic.

Suggest you check out www.fishbase.org for the occurrence records.

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## checkerboard

Thanks, will go check it out!

it might be Northern Vietnam, cause that what our interpreters say, but funnily, the villagers seems to think they are in central vietnam because that's what they say. but it is pretty cool there so my suspicion is that you might be right!

cheers!

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## hwchoy

Central Vietnam should be somewhere around Hue or Danang. But what is the local people like, are they more fair-skinned like Chinese or dark-skinned like Thai/Khmer? You'd also notice that of the Vietnamese, the north are just like Chinese, with Chinese-style cuisine, talks slower (vs the south). Whereas the southerners talk very fast, the accent is different enough that they have to pay attention to what each other is saying, and the cuisine is a lot like thai food.

I spend quite a bit of time in the two major cities back in mid-90s, but didn't get to see much of the country-side unfortunately. The only aquarium fish I saw was a HUGE arowana inside a shop house in HCMC. Wonder if they have any Betta there.

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## hwchoy

if you do a biotope like you'd probably want to have lots of loaches! And don't forget the rice-fish _Oryzias sp._, fishbase list the followings as occuring in the Mekong/Indochina region:_O. curvinotus__O. haugiangensis__O. javanicus__O. mekongensis__O. minutillus__O. pectoralis__O. sinensis_
and there is a long list of Rasboras and Puntius as well, and even the Asian Bony Tongue (Arowana). Here's some illustrations:

_Oryzias javanicus_


_Oryzias mekongensis_


_Rasbora aurotaenia_


_Rasbora daniconius_


_Rasbora dusonensis_


_Rasbora paviei_


_Scleropages formosus_

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## hwchoy

btw, tonight 2300 on Animal Planet there is a program on Vietnam. The Natural World: Vietnam, The Country Not The War. Probably wouldn't see any fishes but hopefully some river biotopes.

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## lorba

choy, u got pm

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## hwchoy

> ----------------
> On 6/24/2003 7:39:53 AM 
> 
> i do wonder if espei can be found there as i have pondered and done some research on this fish, but there are no conclusive evidence that states it's presence in Vietnam unfortunately. i do see some loaches there as well which i suspect to be botia sidthimunki.
> ----------------


checkerboard, I am keen to hear about your comments or ideas about the espei. There was an article on www.siamensis.org about going to Chantaburi province to look for this fish, and also Biotope's stock of _T. espei_ was stated as having come from Koh Ngam, a small island near the tourist island of Koh Chang (think it means elephant island) in Trat province (next to Chantaburi), which is adjacent to Cambodia on the Gulf of Thailand coast.

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## hwchoy

sorry to be so chatty, but since checkerboard mentioned _Boraras urophthalmoides_ here's some tidbit: remember the recent arrest of terrorists in southern Thailand from the town of Narathiwat? Well, guess what? The type locality (i.e. where the particular specimen designated as representative of the species, called the type specimen, came from) is 43km north of the town of Narathiwat, in a swamp area near the mouth of the Sai Buri river. [: :Smile: ] well thought it might be fun to know. [: :Smile: ] oh, for those unfamiliar, this is the so called exclamation-point rasbora, can you guess why?

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## checkerboard

Using fishbase.org, it states that rasboras espei can be found in Vietnam around the Mekong delta. 

As for whether it can be found in Koh Ngam, I do not dispute the possibility because of the proximity to Thailand, but whether it is native or introduced is disputable. It’s like there are fishes found in johor that are not found in Singapore because there is a water barrier though we are so close. . Nevertheless, the chances that fishes that can survive in johor, can likely do so in Singapore if introduced. Hence the logic applies.

Another point is that, small island has only a small ecosystem. Assuming that all rivers flow into the sea or something, the salinity would be higher in the lowland rivers. Therefore unless it is further upstream, the fish wouldn’t be able to survive (though some sources claim that espei can be found in coastal mangrove swamps). And if it is found upstream, then how big a population can it sustain given that the amount of “upstream space” in a small island is likely to be limited. Just my thoughts…

Anyway, I cant access www.siamensis.org, so I cant check out more on the article and thanks for the information you have provided hwchoy. anyway chantaburi is pretty close to the island of koh chang, and it is within the mainland, so in all possibilities, they will enjoy some success there. Really appreciated it and enjoyed learning from you!

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## hwchoy

checkerboard, I am repeat what I have read, just sharing lah. Although I am quite careful to state whether I heard/read it somewhere, or whether I speculate, or where I know it as a fact. Sometimes we get all confused as people repeat someone's &amp;quot;guess&amp;quot; as fact.

Anyway, siamensis.org is a very nice site, unfortunately 90% of the content is in Thai. The pictures are worth having a look, especially those of the countryside and biotope. Several articles are in English, of which one of them has the author stating that _T. espei_ is caught and exported in large numbers from that region, although he only managed to catch a few. He was actually there to find the _Betta prima_ for which that area is the type locality. Some very nice pics. You should try to access again later, I think there is some problem with the domain ownership.

Did you catch the Vietnam documentory on Animal Planet? As usual nothing much on fishes, only showed one muddle with lots of cyprinid-like fishes from the top, that's all. [ :Knockout: ]

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## hwchoy

BTW, don't trust all the records in fishbase.org, some of them are clearly dubious.

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## checkerboard

nope, i didnt watch animal planet last nite unfortunately.

anyway, you mentioned that you stayed in Vietnam for a while.
did you go to the famous perfume pagoda???

you will notice that there the boat trip there takes you through a river filled with vallisneria, cyperus, myriophyllum (probably introduced) and there is lots of cyprinids fishes! especially near the shallows. you can actually see them using discarded drink cans (yes, irresponsible tourist) as &amp;quot;homes&amp;quot; as they dart in and out of them! 

i love vietnam! 
 :Wink:   :Wink:   :Wink:

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## hwchoy

I didn't &amp;quot;stay&amp;quot; in Vietnam as in living there, but I had two offices in Hanoi and HCMC, and I shuttle up from Singapore and between them on projects and customer calls. This is in 1995/96 so things must have changed quite a bit. In those days Hanoi don't have traffic lights and Noi Bai airport terminal looks like those building in Demsey Road CMPB!

Nice charming country.

Anyway I didn't get to see any countryside, other than speeding through it on the highway in my limo [: :Smile: ] The most fun was the expense claim part, once I had to make a claim for &#208;10,000,000 which is less than US$1,000 but the number of digits managed to overflow the input field for the expense program  :Evil:

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## stormhawk

erh checkerboard, ... sidthimunkis are not found in vietnam. their home region is in the western province of Kanchanaburi, Thailand. the main rivers where they can be found are the Kwai Yai and Kwai Noi if i'm not wrong. but they're somewhat close to extinction in the wild, due to hydroelectric projects and pollution of their native rivers. a similar species is Botia nigrolineata, from the Nan River system further north in Thailand. these are somewhat larger. the loaches u saw in Vietnam might be those of the Sinibotia or perhaps Nemacheilus or Shistura species. the fish fauna in northern Vietnam should be the same as those found in Yunnan province, China, whereas the fishes of southern and central Vietnam should somewhat be the same as what u can find in Cambodia and Laos, since various river systems (in this case the Mekong and its tributaries) criss-cross these countries.

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## stormhawk

oh yes, just before i forget, i have some Boraras micros from Sakhon Nakhon, Thailand. this is a province in Northeastern Thailand if i'm not wrong, close to Laos and perhaps Cambodia. if B. micros is found in this area then it is possible that u saw B. micros in Vietnam.

well, this is a list of species found in Indochina, as listed from Brittan's book on Rasboras.

1) rasbora argyrotaenia
2) rasbora aurotaenia
3) sundadanio axelrodi
4) rasbora dusonensis
5) trigonostigma espei
6) rasbora hobelmani
7) rasbora myersi
 :Cool:  rasbora pavei
9) rasbora spilocerca
10) rasbora steineri
11) rasbora sumatrana
12) rasbora tornieri
13) boraras urophthalmoides
14) boraras micros

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## hwchoy

Hey stormhawk, long time no see, where have you been hiding? [: :Smile: ] Can you provide a reference for the Brittan book you're talking about. Where can I get a copy? library?

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## 15 Sierra

sorry to hijack a bit.... hehe.... where can find the 'exclaimation mark' rasboras in singapore... n other drawf ones...thanks...

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## hwchoy

Biotope is the best bet, also try Ben TB and Choong Sua. Check the LFS list for address and contacts.

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## checkerboard

hi stormhawk... long time no see too...

wah, your list of fishes has really made my life a lot easier about finding a fish from vietnam. Yupz, same as hwchoy, i am interested in the book you are refering to...care to share where you got it from?

i am rather surprise to see sundadanio axelroldi there as in almost all books that i have read, they seem to point to their origin in sumatra or some parts of indonesia... this is quite puzzling. 

still cant find uropthalmoides. been to choong sua, ben, biotope, all don't have! will try other fishes soon, especially if axelroldi is confirmed to be found there! :Wink:

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## 15 Sierra

checkerboard... those place dun have arh... i oso looking for tat... but the axelrodis kinda expenisve leh... biotope one for 2.80.... ani cheaper place?

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## budak

the axelrodi's still quite a rare fish. quite unlikely to have it sold for the price of cardinals, harlequins and the commoner stuff, i think...

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## hwchoy

surprising to hear the _S. axlerodi_ occuring in Vietnam.

I have a bunch of _S. axelrodi_ blues and reds, perhaps I can be persuaded to part with them if someone is really sincere and keen to have them  :Smile:   :Smug:

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## budak

choy!!! u neber tink of poor axelrodi-less budak!!!

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## checkerboard

wah, me certainly wouldnt mind having the axelroldi, though i think it is ctainly difficult to part with the fish. Moreover, it does not travel well. A few might perish on the way even.  :Sad:   :Sad:  

budak, i saw axelroldi selling for a dollar and even lesser before, though i hvae to say they are poor specimens, very thin and small.

I certainly am surprise to hear that it can be found in vietnam as well. maybe it is like the case of the &amp;quot;boraras maculatus&amp;quot; that i think i saw...

will carry on my search for urophthlamoides and micros. think i saw rasbora danionensis, but i cannot confirm.

[ :Embarassed: ] [ :Embarassed: ]

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## 15 Sierra

eh, bro... when u find the location, rem to post... i'll go n sweep the place a bit oso... haha... just cleaned out [email protected] of the maculatus... left about 11 only..
but the maculatus kinda stupid, got bout 6 pieces kenna sucked into my cannister filter.... heng all still alive.... tot they kenna bermuda triangle....

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