Whats the rarest fish you have kept
- Thread starter jpcampbell123
- Start date
Although not really rare, for me it would be the Triportheus angulatus hatchet characin. Very thin ventral surface, about 4” max, super fast, always swimming at surface to mid water. Very peaceful but assertive and boisterous at feeding time. Have not seen them available with any frequency. Beautiful silver and black
My rarest fish would have to had been my Wallace’s shoehead catfish. They rarely sprang up in America and it took years of asking people to bring them in before the wet spot and aqua imports brought them in roughly at the same time. Ever since then though they started showing up here and there so I believe I had a part in them becoming more common.
My current profile picture is of my old Wallace’s shoehead catfish actually. Such a beautiful species…
My current profile picture is of my old Wallace’s shoehead catfish actually. Such a beautiful species…
Believe it or not, one of the rarest fish in the hobby, from a wild point of view anyway, is one that is most common in LFS's!! The lowly Bala Shark (Balantiocheilos Melanopterus) is in a very poor state in the wild, in fact some think it's close to extinction. The only reason we see it in LFS's is that it is being commercially bred on a huge scale.
Unfortunately, it's very close cousin, the only other member of the Balantiocheilos family, the Siamese Bala shark, or Burnt Tailed Barb (Balantiocheilos Ambusticauda) is long thought to have been extinct in the wild, and there aren't any successful breeding programmes for this species either, it's totally gone! The only hope for this fish is whether small pockets of remote Asian river systems, well away from human interuption, still indeed hold this species, but no sightings have been reported for years now.
So all of us who have Bala's, which is a lot of us, are indeed keeping a rare species. The future isn't brilliant unless we continue to rely on commercial breeding programmes.
Pic below of the not so lucky Siamese Bala Shark.
Unfortunately, it's very close cousin, the only other member of the Balantiocheilos family, the Siamese Bala shark, or Burnt Tailed Barb (Balantiocheilos Ambusticauda) is long thought to have been extinct in the wild, and there aren't any successful breeding programmes for this species either, it's totally gone! The only hope for this fish is whether small pockets of remote Asian river systems, well away from human interuption, still indeed hold this species, but no sightings have been reported for years now.
So all of us who have Bala's, which is a lot of us, are indeed keeping a rare species. The future isn't brilliant unless we continue to rely on commercial breeding programmes.
Pic below of the not so lucky Siamese Bala Shark.
