Heiko Bleher

With so much of the world mapped and measured, there aren’t many aquatic explorers left compared to previous centuries and now there’s one fewer. Heiko Bleher passed recently, having lived to the age of 80 – quite an accomplishment for a man who’d often be pictured in remote rainforest terrain wearing just his underwear!

Heiko took pride in showcasing his exploration of many important regions rich in obscure ichthyofauna and even if you never heard of him, the chances are you’ve kept a species of fish or aquarium plant that’s named in his honour. Heiko was quite a character and many of us have stories of meeting or interacting with him in his long career in aquatics. Unlike most of the people behind the names of our pets, he did his best to promote them commercially and gave species such as the Tami River rainbowfish (Glossolepis pseudoincisa) the title of ‘Millenium rainbow’ as he thought it would be the most significant introduction to the hobby of the time. More than twenty-five years later, they’re still making an impact. Connected to a network of unsung heroes within the industry, many of the species he championed became mainstream and can be seen in our stores.

Rummynose tetras (Petitella bleheri) are probably the most commonly seen of the Bleher legacy fishes and are bred in the thousands. A taxonomic reshuffle moved all of the Rummynose together into the same genus, prior to this two of them were in Hemigrammus. A true shoaling tetra, rummies are model community fish.

https://www.fishkeeper.co.uk/fish/freshwater/characins/rummynose-tetra-

Ember tetras (Hyphessobrycon amandae) have become very popular choices for nano aquaria and are named in honour of Heiko’s mother, hence the ‘ae’ ending rather than ‘i.’ These tiny tetras really glow when settled into a furnished tank, whether it’s an aquascaped planted aquarium or a biotope set up furnished with leaves and bogwood.

https://www.fishkeeper.co.uk/fish/freshwater/characins/ember-tetra-

To complete the set, another tetra Moenkhausia heikoi can be found in our more specialist stores and seems to inhabit the rocky areas of the Rio Xingu, with large eyes to help it to see in the low light often encountered amongst the large rocks that are typical of this habitat. This might be the perfect choice to fill the otherwise empty open water in an aquarium for L number plecs.

Moving up a little in scale, Heiko’s activities in New Guinea led to a rainbowfish named in his honour – Chilatherina bleheri. Bleher’s rainbowfish is dazzling when the males are displaying to one another and we’re proud to say that we’re working together with a specialist breeder to make a number of geographical forms of this fish available, along with many other rainbows bred from parent stock that’s only a generation or two from the wild. Many of these species are at risk of extinction due to habitat loss, so it’s important to get them secure in the hobby.

https://www.fishkeeper.co.uk/fish/freshwater/rainbow-fish/blehers-rainbowfish

Moving away from community fishes, the Rainbow snakehead (Channa bleheri) is a very popular oddball predator which combines good looks with small size, especially compared to many of its relatives. According to Heiko, he was travelling along the road when his attention was drawn by people digging in the mud supposedly catching fish. This was the moment he first encountered this pocket-sized snakehead which has now become one of the most widely kept and bred of its family.

https://www.fishkeeper.co.uk/fish/freshwater/miscellaneous/rainbow-snakehead

That’s just a handful of the species that serve as a tribute to this remarkable man; there are more and let’s not forget the popular Amazon sword plant which may or may not be Echinodoras bleheri. He published a number of books and many articles which may be of interest, covering Discus and biotope aquaria amongst other topics. He’ll be remembered in aquatic stores, aquariums and fish houses around the world and we raise a glass to his memory. As the saying goes, so long and thanks for all the fish.