The Ticto Barb or Twospot Barb (Puntius ticto) is a freshwater

Freshwater

Fresh water is naturally occurring water on the Earth's surface in ice sheets, ice caps, glaciers, bogs, ponds, lakes, rivers and streams, and underground as groundwater in aquifers and underground streams. Fresh water is generally characterized by having low concentrations of dissolved salts and...

 and brackish subtropical fish

Fish

Fish are a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic vertebrate animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as various extinct related groups...

 belonging to the minnow

Minnow

Minnow is a general term used to refer to small freshwater and saltwater fish, especially those used as bait fish or for fishing bait. More specifically, it refers to small freshwater fish of the carp family.-True minnows:...

 family (Cyprinidae). It is a native of the upper Mekong, Salwen

Salween River

The Salween is a river, about long, that flows from the Tibetan Plateau into the Andaman Sea in Southeast Asia. It drains a narrow and mountainous watershed of that extends into the countries China, Burma and Thailand. Steep canyon walls line the swift, powerful and undammed Salween, one of the...

, Irrawaddy

Ayeyarwady River

The Irrawaddy River or Ayeyarwady River is a river that flows from north to south through Burma . It is the country's largest river and most important commercial waterway. Originating from the confluence of the N'mai and Mali rivers, it flows relatively straight North-South before emptying through...

, Meklong and upper Charo Phraya

Chao Phraya River

The Chao Phraya is a major river in Thailand, with its low alluvial plain forming the centre of the country. It runs through Bangkok, the capital city, and then empties into the Gulf of Thailand.-Etymology:...

 basins in the countries of Nepal

Nepal

Nepal , officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked sovereign state located in South Asia. It is located in the Himalayas and bordered to the north by the People's Republic of China, and to the south, east, and west by the Republic of India...

, India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

, Pakistan

Pakistan

Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...

, Myanmar

Myanmar

Burma , officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar , is a country in Southeast Asia. Burma is bordered by China on the northeast, Laos on the east, Thailand on the southeast, Bangladesh on the west, India on the northwest, the Bay of Bengal to the southwest, and the Andaman Sea on the south....

, Bangladesh

Bangladesh

Bangladesh , officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh is a sovereign state located in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south...

, Thailand

Thailand

Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...

, and Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...

.

The ticto barb is silver and gold with two black spots; one just before the pectoral fin and one near the back tail. It grows to a maximum length of 4 inches (10 centimeters).

It is natively found in still, shallow, marginal waters of lakes and rivers, usually with muddy bottoms. It browses close to the substrate in shallow water. Ticto barbs natively live in a subtropical environment and prefer water with a 6.0 - 7.0 pH

PH

In chemistry, pH is a measure of the acidity or basicity of an aqueous solution. Pure water is said to be neutral, with a pH close to 7.0 at . Solutions with a pH less than 7 are said to be acidic and solutions with a pH greater than 7 are basic or alkaline...

, a water hardness of 4 - 10 dGH

DGH

Degrees of general hardness is a unit of water hardness, specifically of general hardness.General hardness is a measure of the concentration of metal divalent ions such as calcium and magnesium per volume of water...

, and a temperature range of 57 - 71 °F (14 - 22 °C). They can live in both fresh and brackish water. Their diet consists of small crustacean

Crustacean

Crustaceans form a very large group of arthropods, usually treated as a subphylum, which includes such familiar animals as crabs, lobsters, crayfish, shrimp, krill and barnacles. The 50,000 described species range in size from Stygotantulus stocki at , to the Japanese spider crab with a leg span...

s, insect

Insect

Insects are a class of living creatures within the arthropods that have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body , three pairs of jointed legs, compound eyes, and two antennae...

s and plankton

Plankton

Plankton are any drifting organisms that inhabit the pelagic zone of oceans, seas, or bodies of fresh water. That is, plankton are defined by their ecological niche rather than phylogenetic or taxonomic classification...

.

The ticto barb is of commercial importance in the fish keeping industry and is used to create hybrid variants of tiger barb

Tiger barb

The tiger barb or Sumatra barb, is a species of tropical freshwater fish belonging to the Puntius genus of the minnow family. The natural geographic range reportedly extends throughout the Malay Peninsula, Sumatra and Borneo, with unsubstantiated sightings reported in Cambodia...

s and other barbs.

The ticto barb is one of many barbs undergoing revisions in their taxonomic classification. This species has also been referred to as Barbus ticto, Cyprinus ticto, and Systomus ticto, among others. It is frequently confused with its sympatric relative Puntius stoliczkanus

Puntius stoliczkanus

Stoliczkae's Barb is a freshwater tropical fish belonging to the minnow family . It is a native of the upper Mekong, Salwen, Irrawaddy, Meklong and upper Charo Phraya basins in the countries of Nepal, India, Pakistan, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Laos, Thailand, and Sri Lanka.Puntius stoliczkanus is ...

, Stoliczkae's Barb. The whimsical name "Tic-Tac-Toe Barb" is applied to either species.

In the aquarium

The ticto barb is an active schooling fish, which is usually kept in groups. When in large enough groups, they will not bother any other species of fish. They prefer a well planted environment that is similar to the still and shallow waters with mud bottoms of their native habitat

Habitat (ecology)

A habitat is an ecological or environmental area that is inhabited by a particular species of animal, plant or other type of organism...

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Ticto barbs are egg-layers that spawn among a course gravel bed. During spawning

Spawn (biology)

Spawn refers to the eggs and sperm released or deposited, usually into water, by aquatic animals. As a verb, spawn refers to the process of releasing the eggs and sperm, also called spawning...

, they will lay approximately 150 eggs, laying around 20 at a time. Once spawning is finished, they will usually eat any of the eggs that they find. It is usually necessary to separate the fish from the eggs after spawning in order to prevent the eggs from being eaten. The eggs will hatch in approximately 1 day and will be free-swimming a day later.