Rohu

• It is part of the traditional Indian carp polyculture: it is raised alongside other species that feed at different levels of the pond, so that none of them competes with the others.
• Its breeding depends on the monsoon floods, and hatcheries had to learn to induce it hormonally in order to farm it.
• It is the most widely eaten freshwater fish in India and Bangladesh.
• It is one of the three major Indian carps, together with the catla and the mrigal, and has been the basis of the subcontinent's polyculture aquaculture for centuries.
• Polyculture works because the three occupy different layers: the catla feeds at the surface, the rohu in the water column and the mrigal on the bottom. The same pond is thus put to use three times over.
• It is herbivorous and feeds by scraping algae and plants with thick, fringed lips.
• It depends on the monsoon to breed: it spawns in the swollen, turbid waters of the rainy season, and in captivity spawning has to be induced with hormones.
• Its farming has spread to Bangladesh, Pakistan, Myanmar and several countries of South-East Asia.

Skeleton type

Vertebrate - internal bony skeleton (fish)

Habitat & environment

Large rivers and floodplains of the Indian subcontinent

Sexual maturity

2.9 years

Sources consulted: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labeo_rohita