Tambaqui, Colossoma macropomum, is the main native freshwater fish in Brazilian aquaculture. Therefore, intensive research pressure has been applied to the species to support new technologies for tambaqui farming. Molecular biology represents a tool that can be used to investigate every field of applied biology, from fish physiology to the effects of climate change. Based on the importance of reference genes for the relative or absolute quantification of gene transcripts, we cloned and sequenced three candidate reference genes in tambaqui (18S ribossomal RNA - 18s, glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase - gapdh, and actin beta - β-actin), and validated a set of primers for each gene for use in real-time quantitative PCR. The results were evaluated by RefFinder, which indicated that β-actin is the most suitable reference gene for tambaqui among those studied, followed by 18s.