Taxonomy & naming
Bleeker described the species in 1851 from Banjarmasin, Borneo. It was first placed in another genus, so the authority is in parentheses under Leptobarbus. The family Leptobarbidae is recognised in the current Catalog of Fishes arrangement. FishBase gives the English name Hoven's carp, and the trade also uses mad barb and sultan fish.
Morphology
A heavy-bodied, silvery river carp with a stout build. FishBase gives a maximum of 39.5 in SL for males and unsexed fish, which makes it one of the largest cyprinids in the hobby trade.
Habitat
FishBase lists Thailand to Sumatra and Borneo and describes it as pelagic and potamodromous, moving within river systems. It records a depth range from 10 ft downward. The atlas has no published habitat detail beyond that.
Feeding
Diet is not described in the FishBase summary. Large river carps of this kind take fruit, plant matter, insects and small animals.
Mating
Mating behaviour is not described.
Breeding
Reproduction is not described in the sources the atlas uses. The species is farmed in parts of Southeast Asia, so hatchery spawning is known, but no protocol is recorded here.
In the aquarium
FishBase gives 73–79 °F, with pH up to 7.0 and hardness from 12 dH. A fish of this size outgrows any home aquarium and belongs in a pond or public-aquarium-scale system. Juveniles sold small become metre-long adults.
Conservation
The IUCN Red List category is Least Concern, assessed on 6 April 2020. FishBase marks the species as commercial in fisheries and aquaculture.