NEWS103
14
Maleof anotherGoldenTench strain.
Twomalesof theTricolorTench.
Lexicon
Tench
Tinca: thiswas already theusual
designationof this fish inancient
Rome.
auratus:means“golden”.
Cyprinus: theLatinname for carp.
Tenchusuallygrow to around40 cm long,
but thereare rare recordmeasurementsof
70 cm (and aweight of 7.5 kg).Males and
female are easy to tell apart in the Tench.
Themales have appreciably larger ventral
fins than the females.
In summer, when the wheat is in flower
(May - July), the Tench spawns on
submerse vegetation. The eggs are very
small and numerous (300,000 – 600,000
per female). Usually several males drive a
single female. Tench do not practice any
broodcare.
ThemysteriousGoldenTench
In 1782 BLOCH described the Golden
Tench in the scientific literature for the first
time. He regarded it as a separate taxon,
distinct from the Common Tench, and
named it
Cyprinus tinca auratus
. BLOCH
supposed the home of this fish to lie in
Silesia and Bohemia (nowadays areas of
land belonging to Poland and the Czech
Republic).To thepresentday theoriginsof
this gorgeous fish remain unknown. It is
currently
regarded
as
merely
a
domesticated form of the Tench that
originated in captivity and which hence
has no scientific name of its own. It is not
known either when it came into being or
when people began to breed it
deliberately.
In 2004 tricolor Tench and pure white
individuals also turned up in the trade for
the first time. We reported on this in
AQUALOGNews58,which, likeall issuesof
the
News, is available to download free of
charge from the Internet; theURL for issue
58
is
/
news_pdfen/news58d.pdf
Biological snail control
Tench are very good for combating snails,
both in thecoldwater aquariumand in the
garden pond, when the mollusk
population needs to be kept under
control.
Tench in theaquarium
Tench arewonderful aquarium fishes that
can be kept successfully even by
beginners. Because these fishes can also
attain 15-20 cm in the aquarium, the tank
shouldbeof anappropriate size.Tenchare
totally undemanding as far as water
chemistry is concerned. They should,
however, be provided with a soft sandy
substrate in which to dig, and plenty of
hiding-places.
Tench are crepuscular fishes, and so the
tank shouldn’t be toobrightly lit.They can
be fed with all the usual live, frozen, and
dried foods, and mussel flesh should be
included in the diet.Obviously there is no
need to heat the aquarium. Tench are
completely peaceful towards other fishes,
be they conspecific or members of other
species.
There have so far been no reports of
breeding Tench in the aquarium, but
probably nobody has made any serious
attempt. Because Tench can be sexually
mature at only 10-15 cm long, aquarium
breedingshouldbequitepossible.Cold (4-
8°C), dark over-wintering is, however, a
prerequisite for any breeding attempt, as
withall fishes from temperate latitudes.
