HABITAT
Malaysian Biotope My motivation for my Malaysian biotope tank was spotting a fish I’d never seen before at my local pet shop. It was a small, silvery fish with a vivid blue eye, labelled as an “emerald eye rasbora”. A quick Google search, while I was standing in front of its tank, told me that the scientific name was Brevibora dorsiocellata, and that it was native to parts of Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia. I was already looking to create a tank for my pearl gouramis, and I wondered whether this delightful rasbora could go with them. Both species were reported to occur in lowland swamp habitats, which suggested 32 ∙ Aquarium World
by Melanie Newfield
that the two species could be found together. But I was aiming for a more specific type of biotope than just species that came from the same type of habitat in the same country. I was hoping to create a biotope based on a specific location, such as a stretch of river or a lake.
The Seriously Fish website (www. seriouslyfish.com) gave a number of specific localities for emerald eye rasbora, so I started with those. Very quickly, I had a lucky find. Tasek Bera (Bera Lake) was one of the localities listed by Seriously Fish. And I found a paper, available free online, with the
