Celebes Rainbowfish Care Guide - Aquarium Setup, Diet & Breeding

The Celebes Rainbowfish is a small, elegant rainbowfish with a slender, laterally compressed body and distinctive upturned mouth. Its silvery body is highlighted by golden-yellow tones, blue-green iridescence and dark-edged fins, while mature males develop especially impressive finnage and colour during displays.

Celebes Rainbowfish are endemic to Sulawesi, Indonesia, in Southeast Asia. They are associated particularly with the island’s freshwater streams, rivers and coastal waterways, including areas around Makassar and the southwestern peninsula.

A group should be kept in an aquarium of at least 90 litres, ideally measuring around 90 cm long to provide a generous area for active swimming. Use a secure lid, open swimming space, gentle to moderate water movement and dense planting around the sides and rear, with floating plants helping to soften the lighting. A fine gravel or sand substrate, driftwood and smooth stones create a natural stream-like setting without taking away from their swimming room.

Males reach up to about 8 cm (3.1 inches), while females are usually smaller at around 6 cm (2.4 inches).

They are omnivores and should receive a varied diet of quality small pellets or flakes alongside frozen or live foods such as baby brine shrimp, daphnia, cyclops and mosquito larvae. Their small, upturned mouths are suited to fine foods, and occasional vegetable-based foods can help provide a balanced diet.

Celebes Rainbowfish are active, generally peaceful community fish that thrive alongside similarly sized rainbowfish, peaceful barbs, rasboras, danionins, small tetras and non-aggressive bottom dwellers such as Corydoras and smaller loaches. Avoid large predatory fish, fin-nipping species and very slow-moving fish with long, delicate fins, as the Celebes Rainbowfish’s constant activity can cause stress or competition at feeding time.

Celebes Rainbowfish are egg-scatterers that can be bred in a separate spawning aquarium containing fine-leaved plants or spawning mops. A conditioned group will deposit adhesive eggs over several days, and the adults should be removed or the spawning material transferred to protect them from being eaten. Eggs generally hatch in around 7–10 days, with the tiny fry requiring infusoria or another suitably fine first food before they can accept larger foods.

Males are larger and more vividly coloured, with taller, more elaborate dorsal and anal fins that may show strong yellow, orange and dark edging. Females are smaller, slimmer and generally less intensely marked, with shorter, more rounded fins.