Opinions on rainbows?

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brant

Aquarium Advice Freak
Joined
Dec 19, 2005
Messages
267
Location
Hazleton Pennsylvania
With my 75 gal the plan was to get angels but since the rest of my tank inhabitance are and wiil be active why not stick with active fishes. Incase it makes a diferrence the current inhabitance are
9 zebra danios
1 feather fin catfish
1 black ghost knife
3 clown loaches (presently in qt tank to be released into the 75 thursday)
2 bristlenose plecos 1 female 1 male (future inhabitance)
and then the last a school of 5-6 rainbows.
So now we come to wich rainbow as I know there are acouple of types that I have seen and like them all so far. My lfs has good supply of the bosemian and I like those. Are these fish relativly undemaning? Do they need special stuff to be happy?
And yes tank is cycled and have been qt ing and adding fish on a weekly to by weekly basis and I am keeping an eye on water param. for any detectiable amm or nitrite. There has not been any problems yet (KNOCK ON WOOD) watching the ghost and the catfish interact has been hilarios they take turns following one another around after lights out and both have tryed to catch the danios with no success(quick little buggers). the danios have been breeding on a regular basis but the catfish eats the eggs after dark wich was to be expeted in there little eco system plus i don't want a million danios so it all works out.
 
any you like would work, feed them high quality flake with omega 1 fatty acid, and keep the water clean, you shouldnt have any problems. i think rainbows are great, especially when you have males and females mixed, they dance around for each other.
 
When the bgk gets bigger, smaller fish will start disappearing. Rainbows are generally hardy and good community fish. My favorite is the millenium rainbow, but I can't afford $12 a fish. I have several praecox right now and I really like them. Featherfins are really neat too, especially when you have several males displaying.
 
I just got 7 rainbows three weeks ago for my 55 gallon. I ordered them off of AquaBid, from RarefishatLAX. The rainbows I got were:

-2 Chilatherina bleheri
-1 Chilatherina fasciata (the new orange variety)
-1 Melanotaenia herbertaxelrodi
-1 Glossolepis Zig Zag
-1 Melanotaenia lakamora
-1 Unknown (possibly a M. splendida rubrostriata)

I ordered the 5 fish assortment, but he sent a few extra fish as you can see. The fish are young aldults right now, so they are just starting to come into their colors. I can't wait to see what they look like in a couple of months.

The C. bleheri are beautiful, they have an irredecent green on the top of their bodies fading to red on their tails. The C. fasciata is starting to show some nice colors as well. The C. fasciata has a strip on the top of his head from his nose to the first dorsal fin that lights up orange from time to time. It's pretty cool to see, the color changes completely. All the rainbows are males, but they still flash their colors to each other to try and show dominance. The C. bleheri also have a strip that lights up yellow.

The G. Zig Zag has orange lines that seperate his scales. As he matures, his body begins to grow vertically, enlarging the space in between the scales. The results are bright orange lines that zig zag in between the scales.

A few good sites to go to for pictures are http://www.loumarks.com/rainbowfishcam.html and http://members.optusnet.com.au/chelmon/Chilatherina.htm.

The rainbows are easy to keep and have been very hardy thus far. They are easy to feed, they eat whatever you put in the tank. So far I've been feeding a variety of Omega One Super Color, Omega One Veggie Lover, and frozen brine shrimp and blood worms.

The rainbows don't have any special requirements as far as pH or hardness, they thrive in most anything. My pH from the tap is around 8 and they are doing great. They are a hardy fish that are active and beautiful.

I couldn't find any decent rainbows in my area, they all looked like pretty weak stock, that's why I ordered them off of AquaBid. I would highly recommend RarefishatLAX; the rainbows I received from him are beautiful, plus he sent extras.

If you can find some nice looking rainbows in your area, I would recommend them. Boesemani's look fantastic, they would be a great addition IMO.
 
kaz said:
I have a question wouldnt the ghost knife fish eat others?
Hence the need for somthing that will grow over 2 inches. The danios I expected to disapeer but I think the rainbows will be alright. The rainbows my lfs has are already 2-3 inches in length already the bgk will really halfto grow alot bfore they are in danger. And if the danios disapeer I will either replace them with 5 giant danios or more rainbows.

Now incase I decide to mix diferrent rainbow are they pretty compatiable with each other.

yeah I really like my feather fin to he does display to the bkg but there has been no signs of violence between the 2 of them. The fether fin is nifty he has to touch every fish he gets close to with his wiskers I had him in my 29 gal for about 2 months and he was fasinated by the clown pleco but the clown didn't like him it was a feel and chase cycle all the time feel the pleco get chased by the pleco settle for a while and try to feel again. LOL.

Oh and thanks for the info and links they are great.
 
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