Princess Carplet

About

Found in the shallow, vegetated margins of rice paddies and roadside ditches across Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia, this small carplet, Amblypharyngodon chulabhornae, belongs to a genus of five species all sharing the same barbel-free face and a preference for calm, weedy water. It inhabits the Chao Phraya, Mekong, Maeklong, and southeastern Thai river drainages, often tucking into flooded terrestrial grasses and floating aquatic plants rather than open water. Adults top out somewhere between one and one and a half inches, which puts them firmly in nano territory. The species is genuinely peaceful and undemanding about water chemistry, making it a solid candidate for a planted community tank. Provided its tankmates are similarly small and non-aggressive. Like most schooling cyprinids, it does noticeably better in larger groups; eight to ten individuals is a reasonable starting point, and a proper school will settle the fish down and produce much more natural behaviour than a small, sparse group will. In the aquarium hobby, this species is essentially unknown and turns up only occasionally as an accidental inclusion in shipments of related fish. Breeding has not been formally documented, though egg-scattering without parental care is considered likely based on what we know of close relatives.