Just because something’s rare, doesn’t always mean it’s expensive. Here’s a tiny scarcity that’ll fill your heart without draining your bank account.
WORDS: NATHAN HILL
AGLOWLIGHT FROM INDIA, you say? Well, yes and no. While not as bright and punchy as its South American namesake, the Indian glowlight—the glowlight carplet to give its trade name—is a low fidelity delight in itself. So, what is it?
Glowlight carplets, Horadandia brittani, are danionin cyprinids, related to such treats as Inlecypris, Sundadanio, Rasbora, Danio and many more. Horadandia is most closely related to Trigonostigma (the classic harlequin rasboras) and Raboroides.
There are two species in the Horadandia genus—H. brittani and H. atukoralia—and to the naked eye it’s difficult to tell them apart. Indeed, for many years the two were considered the same species, and it wasn’t until 2013 that H. brittani was finally formally described.
At the level of magnifying glasses and calipers, you’d be looking at differences in body depth (H. brittani is negligibly deeper-bodied) and eye diameter (H. brittani having negligibly smaller eyes). If you’re looking that closely, you can also take note of two other unique Horadandia features—neither species possess either barbels or a lateral line.
Your best bet at distinguishing the two is to find the catch location. H. atukoralia, also called the green carplet, is endemic to Sri Lanka, while H. brittani is confined to the southern states of India, specifically Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.
Here, the glowlight carplet inhabits coastal floodplains, where it loves heavily vegetated (read ‘heavily weeded’) ponds, pools and rice paddies. As such, and given it’s ‘at a glance’ superficial similarities with the popular green neon rasbora, Microdevario kubotai, it definitely has a future as a filler for aquascapes. While not as colourful as the green neon, it carries similar hues that are striking under the right light. But that’s assuming you can find some to begin with.
Why haven’t I seen any yet?
Availability in the UK is largely reduced by retailers not taking the plunge and stocking them. At a maximum size of around 1.5-2cm, these are the sort of fish that will end up becoming snacks in most mainstream tanks—a single angelfish could hoover up a shoal in an afternoon. As you might imagine, consumer demand for such a miniscule prey species is low, and when these do appear in stores, they are usually snapped up by the hardcore tropical aficionado, squirrelled away for home breeding.
That’s a shame, as for their size, these adorable fish are surprisingly bulletproof. Their tank needn’t be large (45cm lon
