White Cloud Mountain Minnow

The white cloud mountain minnow (Tanichthys albonubes) comes from cool hill streams in Guangdong, China. It is a slim olive-brown fish with a bright horizontal stripe that shifts between gold and green depending on the angle, and red in the fins that intensifies when males display to one another. It is one of the toughest, most forgiving fish we stock, and one of the few genuinely suited to an unheated aquarium.

Aquarium care

• Small, around 4 cm.
• Subtropical rather than tropical — comfortable at normal room temperature and often kept without a heater.
• Keep eight or more; males display constantly within a group and colour up as a result.
• Prefers cooler, well-oxygenated water with some movement.
• Takes small flake, micro pellets and frozen foods.
• Colours best over dark substrate in a planted tank.

They suit an unheated or lightly heated community with other cool-tolerant fish — other minnows, bearded corydoras, hillstream loaches. They are a poor match for warm-water species such as discus or rams, because the temperature that suits one will shorten the life of the other. Never release aquarium fish into local waterways.

Stock rotates with each shipment, and livestock is available for local pickup at our Lethbridge store. Browse the freshwater fish collection.