Green Eyed Rasbora Care Guide - Aquarium Setup, Diet & Breeding

The Green Eyed Rasbora is a minute, beautifully marked schooling fish with a slender body, a warm coppery to reddish-brown base colour and several dark, rounded markings along its sides. Its reflective greenish eye is especially noticeable under aquarium lighting and gives this tiny rasbora its popular common name.

Boraras maculatus is peaceful but not timid when kept in a properly sized group. Shoaling individuals move through plants and open water in short, lively bursts, with males often displaying to one another and showing their strongest colours when competing for attention.

In the wild, these rasboras are associated with shallow, sluggish forest waters and peat-rich habitats. Leaf litter, submerged roots and dense aquatic vegetation provide cover, while the dark water is often stained by tannins released from decaying leaves and wood.

Like other Boraras, this species is much smaller than many fish sold as rasboras and is well suited to carefully planned nano aquariums. Its delicate scale pattern and active social behaviour make it an appealing choice for aquarists who enjoy observing natural schooling and courtship displays.

Green Eyed Rasboras, Boraras maculatus, are native to Southeast Asia, particularly the Malay Peninsula and parts of Sumatra. They inhabit slow-moving blackwater streams, peat swamps and forest pools containing soft, acidic, tannin-stained water.

A group of Green Eyed Rasboras should have at least 40 litres, with a footprint of roughly 60 cm by 30 cm providing more useful swimming space than a tall aquarium. Use a mature, fully covered tank with gentle filtration, subdued lighting and plenty of fine-leaved plants, moss, roots and leaf litter. Dark substrate and natural wood help them feel secure and bring out their colour, while open areas among the planting allow the shoal to move naturally. Soft, acidic to mildly acidic water and a gentle current are particularly appropriate for their blackwater origins.

Up to 2.5 cm (1 inch) in standard length. Females are usually slightly larger and deeper-bodied than males.

Green Eyed Rasboras are small omnivores that naturally feed on tiny aquatic invertebrates, insect larvae and other minute organisms. Offer a varied diet of high-quality finely crushed flakes or micro-pellets supplemented with baby brine shrimp, daphnia, cyclops and other suitably sized frozen or live foods. Their mouths are very small, so food should be offered in small portions that the whole group can consume quickly.

Green Eyed Rasboras are excellent community fish for peaceful aquariums containing similarly tiny species. Suitable companions include small Corydoras such as pygmy Corydoras, chili rasboras, other gentle Boraras, celestial pearl danios, otocinclus and peaceful freshwater shrimp, provided the shrimp colony is established. Avoid larger rasboras, barbs, gouramis, most cichlids, fin-nipping species and any fish large enough to swallow them or compete aggressively for food.

Green Eyed Rasboras are continuous egg scatterers that may spawn among fine-leaved plants, mosses or spawning mops. In a mature, densely planted aquarium, pairs can release a few eggs regularly, although the adults may eat them. For more reliable results, condition a group with small live or frozen foods and move the eggs or spawning material to a separate, gently filtered rearing container. The eggs usually hatch within a day or two, and the tiny fry need infusoria or another suitably microscopic first food before progressing to newly hatched brine shrimp.

Males are generally slimmer and develop stronger red, copper or pink colouring, particularly during courtship. Females are fuller through the abdomen and often appear slightly paler, especially when carrying eggs.