The Little Fish who Sports a Fu Manchu and is the Color of Maraschino Juice

Meet the aptly-named cherry barb (Pungti titteya), who has many different variations on its binomial name: Puntius titteya, Capoeta titteya, Barbus titteya, Barbodes titteya, Barbonymous titteya, Cyprinus titteya, or Deraniyagala titteya.

This fish is great for a 10-gallon home aquarium, and it will breed in a 5-gallon. It enjoys densely planted aquariums, whether the plants be live, silk, or plastic. I recommend live, as it mimicks the cherry barbs’ natural habitat in Sri Lanka, Mexico, and Colombia.

This cute fish comes in two morphs, the normal type and the albino type. Albino cherries are quite rare. The last picture is a male albino barb. If you look closely at P. titteya, you will notice it has little barbels (whiskers) that look like a fu manchu, making it all the cuter.

Good tankmates for this fish are Corydoras catfish, Acanthophthalmus loaches, spiny eels (genera Mastacembelus and Macrognathus), and freshwater shrimp. Be careful, as they will eat smaller baby fish and baby shrimp.

Cherry barbs enjoy a sand substrate to dig around for food in. In the wild, they eat small bugs and copepods and live in shaded, calm, shallow water, full of dead leaves and with a sandy bottom. They should be kept in water of about 73º – 81º Celsius, and a pH of 6.0 – 8.0.

I enjoy my cherry barb pair. I plan to get more in the future and, with luck, to breed them. (Sorry about another fish post!)