Aggressive Rainbow shark

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paulahughes2004

Aquarium Advice Apprentice
Joined
Jul 3, 2004
Messages
13
Location
Cheshire, UK
I've recently set up a 33 (us)gallon tank with a young rainbow shark and a betta with some other fish the problem is that now the rainbow shark is bigger he's become really aggressive towards the betta and has torn his fins, now the betta is always hidding in the plants and i'm worried he might die. The lfs wont take either fish back. My mum has recently cycled a 5 gallon tank as she was going to start a cold water tank, would this be suitable for my betta at room temprature (23c/73f)? as it has no heater but it does has under gravel filtration.
 
Bettas do need heat, so I would not put it in a 73 degree tank if you can help it. I was worried about this rainbow! I am sorry this has happened - what a pain. Can you find a 25watt heater for the 5gal?
 
Thanks, luckily we've found out a friend of a friend keeps fish and he's agreed to adopt the rainbow shark.But now i know not to mix bettas and rainbow sharks. Will the betta be ok in the tank now that the rainbow shark is gone or will he need some sort of treatment for his fins?
 
I would definitley get some stress coat and add to the tank. You might need to medicate the torn fins, all depending on how badly the rainbow shark beat them up. The betta will be fine in the tank now, those nasty rainbow sharks can get mean!

Glad you got rid of it though, and Mr. Betta is happy :wink:
 
His fins are torn into strips with the very edges missing. As soon as the rainbow shark was gone he came out of hiding and was swimming all around the tank. All the other fish seem a little happier too
 
I read that rainbow shark are very aggressive, if you want any you need to get 5 or more to cut the aggressive down some.
 
His fins are torn into strips with the very edges missing. As soon as the rainbow shark was gone he came out of hiding and was swimming all around the tank. All the other fish seem a little happier too

I would see how it does over the next few days. Try adding a little stress coat to the tank and see what happens. If the stress coat doesn't do the trick, then I would medicate.

Just a warning though: Don't use melafix on the betta.

Good luck.
 
beta fix works great for Bettas I have had a couple sick ones over the years and treated them for 7 days with Betta fix and they were all fine. I even had my 4 year old knock over her Betta tank and we couldn't find the little fish for about 10 minutes, he is still around thanks to Bettafix. As for Rainbows they are very aggressive and so are red tailed sharks unforunately my red tailed shark beat the crap out of a gold fish till I removed the goldfish, now he gets along with the rest
 
Today he's sitting at the bottom of the tank. Can you get betta fix in the uk? Hes eating fine and swims around a little but mainly at the bottom of the tank. And is Betta fix ok to use with other fish? I've got a loach, some neon tetras, lightglow tetras, penguin tetras an angel fish and 3 glass catfish oh and 2 mollies. Also i've noticed some snails they must of been in their live food. Should i take them out?
 
Sharks don't really mix that well with any fish, really! They can be nasty little guys!

If the UK doesn't receive betta fix, ask in the store for the English equivalent. Make it patently clear, though, that you're *not* looking for the English equivalent of Melafix which, I recently found out, it too strong for Bettas.
 
zao said:
I read that rainbow shark are very aggressive, if you want any you need to get 5 or more to cut the aggressive down some.

Have to completely disagree.. Rainbow sharks are generally pretty tame, mostly bottom dwelling scavengers. They're mostly aggressive towards each other, and shouldn't be kept together unless you've got roughly 50-60 gallons per rainbow shark.

I had two in a 75 gallon over a year ago, and they still fought.
 
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