What rasbora special is this?

On_a_dishy · Apr 6, 2023

The reflection shows some of them as yellow (!) but they are all identical - it’s just a light oddity.
I found @Wills Feb 2023 thread exploring the same question but I’m still wary of labelling them! They too are labelled as espei, but have the gold part in front of the black, which suggests hengeli.
So, espei or hengeli?

On_a_dishy · Apr 6, 2023

*Species! The thread title autocorrected to “special”! Makes it seem like they’re on a menu…

Ichthys · Apr 6, 2023

If the light isn’t showing their true colour then it’s hard to say from those pictures.
Espei is an orange fish, so the orange stripe isn’t as obvious. It also has orange/yellow in the fins.
Hengeli has almost no body colour except the black with an obvious yellow stripe above, and colourless fins. The stripe comes down in front of the black on both species, it’s just more obvious on hengeli because of the lack of orange on the body.
They’re not great pictures but I’d say from them probably hengeli since the yellow(?) stripe is very obvious on all of them.
But they could also be not-coloured-up-yet espei…..

Rocky998 · Apr 6, 2023

Ichthys said:
If the light isn’t showing their true colour then it’s hard to say from those pictures.
Espei is an orange fish, so the orange stripe isn’t as obvious. It also has orange/yellow in the fins.
Hengeli has almost no body colour except the black with an obvious yellow stripe above, and colourless fins. The stripe comes down in front of the black on both species, it’s just more obvious on hengeli because of the lack of orange on the body.
They’re not great pictures but I’d say from them probably hengeli since the yellow(?) stripe is very obvious on all of them.
But they could also be not-coloured-up-yet espei…..

I concur. I believe this species in the photo is hengeli (glowlight rasbora). You can tell as the coloring isn't as pronounced as others and the "outer-edging" is almost a milky transparency

Wills · Apr 6, 2023

You don't happen to be from up north by any chance? Somewhere near quite a large bridge?

These look like the ones I tried to work out and got the same answer which was helpfully.... maybe.... the thing I took from my discussions are that I'd only buy Espei if the fish was very red/copper apart from the black mark, these have quite a big red/copper patch but its not quite enough for me to say 100%.

Wills

On_a_dishy · Apr 7, 2023

Wills said:
You don't happen to be from up north by any chance? Somewhere near quite a large bridge?

These look like the ones I tried to work out and got the same answer which was helpfully.... maybe.... the thing I took from my discussions are that I'd only buy Espei if the fish was very red/copper apart from the black mark, these have quite a big red/copper patch but its not quite enough for me to say 100%.

Wills

No, not north near a large bridge - although I did spend 4 years in the university of Hull many years ago!
It was your espei/hengeli discussion in Feb that started me wondering about my fish. I’ll get a better picture today. They have lovely, buoyant personalities and enjoy playing with the outlet flow (baffled with sponge to quell the Fluval’s force). Fussy eaters, though. Didn’t want to know about the flake I offered, but gobbled up crushed Betta pellets.