Sultan Fish

About

The saltan fish (Leptobarbus rubripinna) is a large Southeast Asian barb that causes real problems in the hobby. Not because of aggression, but because of scale. Regularly sold as juveniles a few inches long, this species grows into a genuinely massive river fish that has no place in the average home aquarium. It shares common names like 'mad barb', 'sultan fish', and 'maroon shark' with the closely related Leptobarbus hoevenii, and the two are frequently mixed up at the point of sale, with both species often labeled identically. If you want to tell them apart, look for the broad dark stripe running along the side of the body, the rounded fin lobes, and the orange to red coloration on the pelvic and anal fins. All features of L. rubripinna. The 'mad barb' nickname comes from a genuinely fascinating behavior documented in the wild: individuals that feed on seeds from the Chaulmoogra tree can appear disoriented and swim erratically, as if intoxicated. In some parts of its range this even makes the fish unsafe to eat at certain times. It has never been bred in home aquaria, though commercial aquaculture in Thailand produces large numbers using hormone-induced spawning. Peaceful toward similarly sized fish, but small tankmates are at risk of being eaten.