I was asked a couple of months ago to help a friend, Rob Wager, do a biotope aquarium on the Brisbane Ornate Rainbowfish (Rhadinocentrus ornatus). This beautiful little fish can be found in small pockets on the east coast of Queensland and New South Wales, mainly in swamps of coastal heathland. Due to the destruction of a lot of its habitat, this once wide spread fish is now only found in places like the creek on this video. It was thought to be extinct in the Brisbane River catchment up until the 1990's when it was rediscovered by Rob Wager and Steve Brooks. It was once overlooked in the Australian aquarium hobby but has made a comeback with a lot of people getting into nature style aquariums or Biotopes.
Since I have lived in Brisbane my whole life it was important to me to give this beautiful fish a biotope aquarium to set it off and to make sure I replicated it's biotope to do it justice. I hope you enjoy.
A small write up Rob Wager did for this video to give a bit of an insight on the history of the fish for people that would like to translate:
Ornate Rainbowfish (Rhadinocentrus ornatus), also known as Rhads, were once common throughout the Bulimba Creek catchment prior to timber-getters harvesting creek side shelter trees between 1850 and 1870. With the conversion of the forested landscape to farmland, and the removal of vegetation from creek banks and swamps, Rhads rapidly disappeared from most of Bulimba creek and its tributaries, although they were still able to be found in 1927 according to an Aquarium & Terrarium Society of Queensland excursion report. With continuing urbanisation of the catchment Queensland Museum staff suggested at an Australia New Guinea Fishes Association (Queensland Inc.) meeting that Rhads were extinct throughout the Brisbane River catchment. A fortuitous re-discovery by Rob Wager and Steve Brooks around 1990 alerted Brisbane City council that Rhads could still be found in tiny headwater refuge streams of Bulimba creek. A change from excavating, piping and removing natural drainage lines from housing estates to one of valuing and retaining tiny creeks as corridors for animal and plant diversity, as well as property buybacks along creeks, riparian offsets and a shift to restore and re-vegetate creek banks has given Rhads their best chance of survival in an urban landscape. This is the story of how a tiny tributary of Bulimba creek was transformed from farmland to the best chance Rhads have to survive amongst housing developments. Enjoy.
A couple of useful links:
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