Question about a species of rainbowfish...

[jehenry89]

Does anyone have any experience with Gertrude's Blue-eye Rainbowfish, Pacific Blue-eye Rainbowfish (Pseudomugil signifer) or Blue-Eyed Tenellus Rainbowfish? I am looking for stocking ideas for my planted 10 gallon tank. How many can I put into the tank if they are the only fish going in the tank? What is there personality like (active?aggressive, peaceful ect). Let me know what you guys think!

 

[pip walters]

Have some gertrudes in stock at work at the moment and had them for a few weeks. They appear to be very tough for their size and very peaceful. Been feeding flake, tablet food and occasional fine frozen foods (cyclops). Not showing full colour as they are in a bare tank. Wide pH tolerance. They have been in a 26L tank with a home made sponge filter... I hear the gasps now, lol. More gasps when I tell you I put close to 100 in initially!! Think we lost 2 fish the day after import, so not bad going

Had pacific blue eyes in some months ago, also very peaceful shoaling fish. May need addition of salt, depending on where they were collected from. They have been found in full marine conditions!

 

[jehenry89]

I never realized how many beautiful species of rainbow fish there were! I just keep finding more that I like, its hard to narrow it down . I know that I just want to stick to one species of fish in this tank and just making a schooling fish. Since it is only 10 gallons, I need something that will stay small and for how small these guys stay, they have beautiful colors.

 

[pip walters]

Rainbows are stunning. These little gertrudes are great and seem very easy to keep. In the wild, they are found at pH as low as 5 !!

 

[Rivercats]

I keep Spotted Blue Eyes (Gertrudes) and they are wonderful fish for a 10g. You could easily do 12 but be sure to at least have an even number of male to female or have slightly more females. They enjoy some floating cover and it's not too hard to get them to spawn if you have floating plants with longer dangling roots such as water lettuce or water hyacinth or have a large area of some type of moss. Mine has spawned the day after a WC with slightly cooler water. Usually it happens first thing in the morning. Also since they utilize the upper water level you can keep something like Burmese Rosy Loaches or Multi Striped Pygmy Loaches for bottom activity as they are both very tiny. Here's a pic of one of my male and female Rosy Loaches. The female has the spots/broken bars. Over time the males get quite a nice salmon red color... Aquarium Advice - Aquarium Forum Community - Rivercats's Album: 55g Planted- Nano fish - Picture. Or you could do some small shrimp. I have Fire Red Cherry Shrimp which are a really incredible bright red. They would make a nice addition with the Gertrudes as well.

 

[jehenry89]

I keep Spotted Blue Eyes (Gertrudes) and they are wonderful fish for a 10g. You could easily do 12 but be sure to at least have an even number of male to female or have slightly more females. They enjoy some floating cover and it's not too hard to get them to spawn if you have floating plants with longer dangling roots such as water lettuce or water hyacinth or have a large area of some type of moss. Mine has spawned the day after a WC with slightly cooler water. Usually it happens first thing in the morning. Also since they utilize the upper water level you can keep something like Burmese Rosy Loaches or Multi Striped Pygmy Loaches for bottom activity as they are both very tiny. Here's a pic of one of my male and female Rosy Loaches. The female has the spots/broken bars. Over time the males get quite a nice salmon red color... Aquarium Advice - Aquarium Forum Community - Rivercats's Album: 55g Planted- Nano fish - Picture. Or you could do some small shrimp. I have Fire Red Cherry Shrimp which are a really incredible bright red. They would make a nice addition with the Gertrudes as well.

Thanks for the great advice rivercats as always!!! I was trying to find a bottom feeder as well and I thought I was going to be limited to shrimp because of the size of the tank so thanks for the suggestion!! I really just wanted to make sure that they would intact flourish in a 10 gallon even though the site I was looking to purchase from said 10 gallon, you never know with info like that lol. I have shrimp in my 55gallon so I think I am actually going to get the loaches you mentioned. How many can I get of those if I do decide to get 12 blueeyed fish? I am still undecided on my plants at the moment. I have to see if I can still get my boyfriend's co2 paintball tank before I make those decisions. But I am not reallyfarmilular with any floating.plants. what are the requirements for the ones you mentioned? I am running with 2 13watt cfl lights until I can afford to get a good light strips. And I will be using the dry ferts I use for my 55gallon.

One more question, do these fish jump? Or will the floating plants be affected by a topless tank? If so, I'll have to get a lid for the tank.

 

[Rivercats]

I've never had problems with them jumping but there is always a chance. Floating plants really tend to help. For a 10g I would use Frogbit so it's in scale to the tank size. I use that in the 55g nano fish tank and it works great. Something else I would consider is getting a small branchy piece of DW and putting some Fissidens Fontanus on the ends of some of the branches. It's a moss but looks like tiny fern fronds. That is what my Threadfins and Spotted BE's like to spawn in.

You could do 6 of either smaller loach. You'll get a lot more color from the Rosy Loaches but both Loaches are great little fish.

It may sound like a lot of fish but once you see how tiny they really are you'll be going... should I add more of something... lol!

 

[jehenry89]

I've never had problems with them jumping but there is always a chance. Floating plants really tend to help. For a 10g I would use Frogbit so it's in scale to the tank size. I use that in the 55g nano fish tank and it works great. Something else I would consider is getting a small branchy piece of DW and putting some Fissidens Fontanus on the ends of some of the branches. It's a moss but looks like tiny fern fronds. That is what my Threadfins and Spotted BE's like to spawn in.

You could do 6 of either smaller loach. You'll get a lot more color from the Rosy Loaches but both Loaches are great little fish.

It may sound like a lot of fish but once you see how tiny they really are you'll be going... should I add more of something... lol!

That is exactly what I was thinking lol. "That is a lot of fish!!!" But ya, I know they are small and the rainbow fish will group. This is the first time I have seen Frogbit and I actually really like it, I didn't think I would like floating plants. Will these be affected by a HOB filter?

I have been looking at driftwood and I am trying to decide on what type I want to get but I will have to look into some spider driftwood since you said branchy! I was thinking about going with Malaysian. I have two pieces of that in my 55 gallon and I really like it. I just finished putting the background, dirt and black sand in my tank today so once I get my filter, that's when I am going to start looking at plants to get it cycled. I have to get a better heater, one with a dial ><. I don't even know how many gallons this heater will work for so I have to get water in it and see how well it holds. Hopefully I can use this as a temp heater until after Christmas.

 

[Rivercats]

Most but not all floating plants don't do well with HOB filters. Reason being is often the tanks water level isn't high enough and the plants get pushed under the water by it. If you could section an area off or use a small canister filter you could get it to work. Of start a thread asking how people with HOB filters keep their floating plants from getting pushed underwater by it.

I also noticed your cap layer is way too thin. You need a good 1-1/2 at least to keep dirt under when planting.

 

[jehenry89]

Will do!! I did 1-1inch ratio. I have more sand though. I already have the HOB filter :/. I wanted to do canister but it was out of my budget and as you can see, I have no where to put it. I saw the HOB canisters but I was scared I would knock it around when I was sleeping. There has to be a way to get them to work. I'll make a post.

Thanks!!

 

[Rivercats]

Another thing when you have a dirted tank always have spare cap substrate on hand to cover any messes that can occur.

 

[jehenry89]

Well good to know!!! I have a huge bag of it and I will never use all of it and I used the same stuff for both my tanks so I can use it for either or.