New Red Tail Shark need some advice

[AndrewH]

Hello I'm new to this forum but have been browsing for awhile and have been fish keeping for about 6 months now.


Anyways I recently purchased a baby Red Tailed Shark he's about 1 inch long right now. He's by himself in a 10 gallon (Established Tank) for the time being and will be upgrading him to a 30 gallon when I get some extra money. I rescued him from a very pitiful tank at petsmart that had 2 dead fish in it. Anyways I have a few questions on RTS

At the moment it's color is a sorta faded black and it's tail is not very red in fact it's a slightly tinted clearish whitish color. It's colors look nothing like the RTS pictures I've seen. I'm guessing this has to do with poor water conditions or maybe he's just afraid. Can anyone clarify this for me, and will his colors come back?

Next question I have is feeding. Now I had algae on my air stone tube but this little guy completely cleaned it up overnight and I see him eating it off all the decorations in the tank which is great. So without doing any research on this fish because I've been pretty busy I bought some small Hikari sinking wafers and TetraColor tropical granules to help his color grow back. I also have some frozen blood worms. I haven't gotten a chance to feed him yet so I'm not exactly sure if he'll eat all of that. If anyone has a RTS can you give me some suggestions on what to feed It

Any other good tips on RTS would be greatly appreciated

 

[MichaelsLilGray]

i had some.. had to flush them.. 1 jumped out.. the other wouldnt stop pickin the fins off my other fish.. so i cant help you lol All i can tell you is they are very teritorial. Dont like members of there own species.. and will pick on any shark rather its bigger than it or not. It flat out refuses to be kept with any other fish...

 

[AndrewH]

Good to know, I plan to keep him in a tank by himself well... him and a few snails but hopefully that won't be a problem

 

[MichaelsLilGray]

bloodworms would be a good diet.. along with the ocasional brime shrimp(frozen of course) when he gets about 4-5 inches long (around adult max) he will eat mennows and smaller fish parts from what i was told..

 

[heylady]

Personally, I love RTBS. I've had two since I've been in this hobby. The first one I ended up trading back to the LFS when I reduced the number of tanks I had. The second one I had for maybe 6 years and it recently died.
They will eat anything. Bloodworms, mysis shrimp, pellet food, flake food. It's all good to them! As you've alreay found out they eat algae too! Very good fish to have if you have a problem with black brush algae too. I guess I should mention that they eat snails too! Small snails will be a nice snack for these guys!
Very aggressive fish. Will not tolerate any similar shaped fish or any member of it's own species (in other words, no siamese algae eaters no rainbow sharks, etc.) Will be aggressive towards any smaller fish or any timid fish. They will chase them relentlessly. Not a good "community" tank member.
Very good to have in a tank of medium sized, more aggressive fish. I had mine in with a blood parrot (king kong variety), and a large pleco. BTW, they are especially good with plecos. I would keep this fish with any of the medium sized bolder cichlids like convict, firemouth, blood parrot, etc... this is assuming you have a decent sized tank and the fish (especially convicts) are not breeding. If the cichlids are breeding then the tables will be turned! I would not recommend adding one to a tank of very large fish like oscars, only because the RTBS may be eaten!

Give your fish time. Once he is used to the tank and you provide him with clean water and good food his colors will improve dramatically!!

HTH

 

[MichaelsLilGray]

I didnt know they got along with the large pleco's... eh.. i found out the hard way they dont like other fish.. and the guy at exotic fish showed me oscars dont screw around with them LOL it was gone in 5 seconds.

 

[AndrewH]

Thanks for all the great advice. I'm gonna do some experiments and see if he'll eat some veggies. I'll do a follow up later

 

[MichaelsLilGray]

veggies are good, but dont let them replace his diet.. he will need some meet in it too. just fyi

 

[AndrewH]

I have a pretty wide variety of food for him now. So far he eats.

Tetra Color Granuals
Tetra Flakes
Hikari Algae Wafer
Zucchini
Peas
Frozen Blood Worms
And his own poop :-|


He really likes the peas and does a pretty cool trick with them. I squish them up and sink it to the bottom of the tank and he will pick it up and bring it to the filter intake where it gets stuck and then he eats off of it. He doesn't do it with any other food just with the peas. He's done it 2 times so far. Next time im gonna record it.