MEET AN AQUARIST SERIES: THE AQUARISTS OF BANGALORE by Howard Norfolk PART TWO: MADAN SUBRAMANIAN
The lights of Madan's spectacular six feet long aquarium are visible from the street through the latticework of the large front balcony on which it sits. As is normal for keen aquarists in India, Madan built this tank himself, using glass cut and ground to size by a glass company. It is held together by silicone, without a metal frame. Its stand and canopy were custom made of wood to match the built-in cabinets of the spacious marble-floored living room where it was originally kept. But it was found to be a little messy so was moved just outside onto the adjoining balcony, leaving the elegant room to Madan's collection of objets d'art from his World travels.
Madan's main interest is growing aquatic plants, and to this end the tank
is lit eleven hours per day by seven fluorescent tubes, is filtered with an Eheim P11
canister filter, and is supplied with CO2 from a
The tank does of course contain fish - a community of tetras, rainbows, platies, Otocinclus, flying foxes, guppies, gouramis and corys. But the most interesting fish was one that I had not seen before,
"Denison's flying fox" or the "red line torpedo fish" (Puntius
denisonii, formerly Barbus denisonii Day 1865, and Madan also referred to it
as Crossocheilus denisonii - there is still lots of confusion over Indian fish
names!). This fish resembles the Siamese algae eater in shape but is far more colourful,
with beautiful red and yellow stripes on its body and fins. It is in fact a barb, and is
omnivorous. It likes to swim in groups and is peaceful and non-territorial, and
grows to about 16cm. It is a jumper and should be in a covered tank. One of my
Indian friends once had one jump five feet straight up out of a bucket - he caught it at
eye level! Later I took the trouble to seek out the wholesaler, in Madras, and was
told that it is only available seasonally, being caught in the wild from fast flowing hill
streams in South India. (It thus requires a well oxygenated tank and will accept cooler
temperatures). It has not yet been bred in captivity and I do not know how many are left
in the wild, although Madan told me that it is not on the endangered list. (December
'02: I just came across a list in an Indian web site http://www.ornamentalfishes.org/html/family.htm
that says that this fish is endangered, but "sufficient quantity is
available for commercial exploitation"). Particularly if it could be bred in
captivity*, it would be a wonderful new barb for our aquariums. It has recently been
imported and sold in North America, at a price of US$30 - 40, and some were sold in
Germany in 1997 and in England in 2003.
Beside the main tank are two smaller ones of about 40 gallons each. These are also supplied with C02 and are well planted. When I visited in January 2002 Madan was not due back at work until May, and was starting to set up another large square-shaped tank. He had also begun work on his own web page, and hopefully we shall be able to see photos of this tank in due course. So who looks after the tanks when Madan is away for six months at a time? - his wife Gayathri of course! When they married in 1991 Gayathri had not the slightest interest in aquariums, but she now does a very good job with no disasters yet, helped sometimes by Madan's instructions over long distance telephone lines. Raj Kumar told me of a young man he knew who seemed to be able to breed any fish he tried. Adip Sajjan Raj is an electrical engineering student who had to sit an important examination on the morning of my visit. Madan made several calls on his cellular phone and after lunch we finally went to the house where Adip lives with his family… GO TO PART THREE: ADIP SAJJAN RAJ |
Madan with
his main aquarium
