Sucker barb

Barbichthys laevis

Also known as Sucker barbel

FreshwaterFish

Care at a glance

Temperature: 72–82°F (22–28°C)
pH: 6.0–7.5
Adult size: 12.2 in (31 cm)
Minimum tank: 159 gal (600 L)
Temperament: Mostly peaceful
Social behavior: Schooling
Swim level: Middle
Difficulty: Medium
Breeding: No record
Rarity: Rare
Origin: Rivers of the Malay Peninsula, Sumatra, and Borneo
Family: Cyprinidae

Overview

The sucker barb is a large, silvery river fish that grazes surfaces and grows to around 30 centimetres, so it needs a big aquarium with long swimming lanes and plenty of grazable rock and wood. It is a shoaling species, happiest in a group, and mostly peaceful, though large adults can be pushy, so give them room and match them with other sizeable, robust tankmates rather than small fish. It works the middle and lower water, rasping biofilm and algae, and should be fed a green-leaning diet of algae wafers, vegetables, and sinking pellets, with some frozen foods. A tank of around 600 liters is a realistic minimum.

In the wild

Barbichthys laevis lives in medium and large rivers across the Malay Peninsula, Sumatra, and Borneo and neighbouring Southeast Asia, where it grazes stone and submerged wood in flowing water. A big river tank with strong current, water-worn boulders, driftwood, and a sand bed lets it feed and behave naturally. Keep it warm at 22 to 28 degrees Celsius with pH 6.0 to 7.5, with high oxygen and heavy filtration.

Good to know

Barbichthys laevis is a carp-family fish, Cyprinidae, reaching about 31 centimetres. It has a down-turned, grazing mouth and, unusually, greatly enlarged suborbital bones that cover much of the cheek, with a dark stripe along each lobe of the tail. Described by Valenciennes in 1842, it is a bottom-grazing river fish and is not bred in home aquariums.

Did you know

The sucker barb makes its living much like the little flying fox and Siamese algae eater, grazing biofilm from river stone, but it does the same job at more than twice their length, a scaled-up version of the familiar aquarium algae grazers.