Sexually mature females have rounder-bellies, often a little larger, and less colorful than males.

Like many small cyprinids this species is an egg-scatterer that exhibits no parental care after laying the eggs. In a heavily-planted aquarium where there are both males and females, a relatively small numbers of fry may start to appear without any human intervention, but if you want to increase the yield of fry a separate breeding tank should be used. For breeding a 10-15 litres aquarium is enough. The tank should be decorated with few clumps of fine-leaved aquarium plants, such as Java Moss, or another option is to use some kind of mesh with a large enough grade so the eggs can fall through it and can protect the eggs from the adults. Use peat filtered very soft (1-5 dGH°), acidic (pH 5-6,5) water with a temperature of 27-29 °C. Two or three pairs of well-conditioned adult fish should then be introduced to the container. The breeding pairs should be left in the aquarium for a couple of days as spawning should continue on a daily basis. After a few days, when the eggs start to appear, the parents should be removed from the aquarium. The eggs hatch in 24-36 hours, and the larvae become free-swimming after another 24 hours. The tiny fry can be fed with microscopic foods or liquid fry foods. The fry are very small, but they gow quickly.