Rainbow Fish

apalsson

Junior Poster
Dec 9, 2005
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Lennox Head, NSW Australia
In my view, Rainbow fish are amongst the best fish you can have in a planted tank.
I currently keep several species in my 180Gal tank, or trifasciata, incisus, praecox, lacoustris and inornata.
Rainbow fish are amongst the most under rated of all ornamental fish here in Australia, maybe because they are native to Australia.
Another reason might be that they don't start really showing colour till they are 6 - 12 months old and aqarium shops don't like keeping fish in their tanks too long.

Here is an example of one of my trifasciatas
 

Tom Barr

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Yes, even the most interesting fish in the USA are not kept much due to them being native.

Our darter group is one such example.
But if it's from Oz, Amazon etc, they perk right up and pay $$$ for it.

Not sure why.

Regards,
Tom Barr
 

Professor Myers

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Aug 24, 2006
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apalsson;10732 said:
In my view, Rainbow fish are amongst the best fish you can have in a planted tank.
I currently keep several species in my 180Gal tank, or trifasciata, incisus, praecox, lacoustris and inornata.
Rainbow fish are amongst the most under rated of all ornamental fish here in Australia, maybe because they are native to Australia.
Another reason might be that they don't start really showing colour till they are 6 - 12 months old and aqarium shops don't like keeping fish in their tanks too long.

Here is an example of one of my trifasciatas

He's a Dandy !

Personally I'm fond of Rainbow fish. You may be right about the marketing of juveniles though ? That's a tough sell. I'd also suspect that many are virtually "Too Easy" to keep. Some people may not think they're challenging enough ? Like that low maintenance girlfriend we all eventually regret running off ! :eek: LOL.

I only keep a few Praecox, Boesmani, and Werneris these days, but a few nice ones ( Trifaciata, Goyder River etc...) have shown up recently.
 

Greg Watson

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I suspect that in the right envrionment, many breed relatively easily too. I recently moved a large population of about 8 varieties of Rainbows out of my 180 gallon tank into a 55 gallon tank with the intention of completely redoing the 180 gallon tank.

I got busy and wasn't able to get around to tearing down the 180 gallon tank for about 4 weeks. Much to my suprise, when I turned on the lights, I spotted 8 fry.

Now, I have no clue what kind of rainbow these fry are ... I guess I am going to find out ... I believe that they are either Australian Rainbows or Turquoise Rainbows. Both of these groups had larger populations with fish that had frequently displayed the right characteristics ...

I have two huge 6 inch bright red Red Irian along with one female that remained totally silver. I also have numerous 5 inch Bosemani that just never did color up like I think they should have (of course others still thought they were beautiful!)

All of these schools were hunter seekers ... I used to drop baby black molies and baby swordtails into the tank ... even in a heavily planted tank, they could not survive long ... and no matter what people say about them having large mouths but small throats, anything that moved was considered food ...

Greg
 

girthvader

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Nov 20, 2006
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Thats very interesting. I also have a few schools of Rainbows; Red Irian, Boesemani, Praecox, Parkinsoni, Tourquoise. Yellow, Axelrod and Furcatas with a school of neons. I started out with 12 Furcatas and am now down to 6, and 6 neons, and I always blamed it on my lone Opaline Gourami in there. I never once suspected my larger rainbows as a possible culprit. I didn't think they eat swimmers, just frozen live.

Maybe it was a bit of both.......

Agreed with Rainbows being a great planted fish. I also like Geos as they help turn the substrate in between cleanings :) Great little vacuums :)
 

Tom Barr

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I've kept them for 30 years(not the same fish:D )

Regards,
Tom Barr
 

Frolicsome_Flora

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Jan 12, 2007
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I have 5 dwarf neon rainbows, I think youd have to go a long way to find a more beautiful and good natured fish. Their colours never cease to amaze me and anyone that visits.
 

nursie

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Aug 25, 2006
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I have dwarf rainbows andf Boesemani's. I have heard somewhere that they eat duckweed. I have never observed this, but I can tell you that the tank with the bows does not ahve duckweed, and most of my other ones do.
Any one have any thoughts on this?
 

Michael

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Dec 13, 2006
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Bristol, CT
I have an assortment of Rainbows in a number of my tanks. I find that here in New England the smaller types are hard to come by, such as; Featherfins, Celabese & Praecox.
 

danbryans

Junior Poster
Jan 24, 2007
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One of the first few fishes i had when I first started this hobby is the boesmani rainbow. They are really quite beautiful to look at especially when they're going through courtship rituals. There color really liven up. Its been just over a year now and I still have 5 of them (not the original ones) in a planted tank. Although there are a lot more varieties of rainbows equally lovely to keep, sadly enough only few are available here in the philippines. Torquoise, threadfins, iranian, dwarfs are the only other types available here that seem worth it to keep. IMO.
 

Crazy Loaches

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Nov 20, 2006
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Back when I first was getting into CO2 I had rainbows, australian, dwarf neons, turqouise, a beautiful Boesamani, and a few other kinds. Unfortunatly I was having problems with O2 levels at night and had a couple mishaps. Lost about half the fish in my tank. The rainbows were of the first to pass. After both mishaps I had only 1 neon left and 1 [ugly lookin] madagascar rainbow. I decided then never to take the chance with them and never replaced them, fearing the possibility of a low O2 event again. But since then things are much better, never have any problems since upping the light, co2, and dosing dry ferts dialy. Maybe I will bring them back, they were my favorite species next to loaches. ;)
 

Frolicsome_Flora

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Jan 12, 2007
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I have dwarf neon rainbows in my high light tank, the entire trick to keeping rainbows with high levels of CO2 is surface agitation. They respond very fast to excessive CO2, but only when theyre lacking in O2 in the first place. If you can provide enough surface movement, and are turning off your CO2 at night, rainbows can survive very high levels of CO2 during the day.
 

DaveSurfer

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Mar 14, 2005
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Interesting. In your opinion do you think they would eat cherry shrimp? I'm planning a new tank with rainbows and cherries.
 

Gerryd

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Sep 23, 2007
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Hi,

My Bosemanis will eat Duckweed and also eat brush algae that is floating free in the water column....

I have also seen them eat other bits of plant debrsi (H.difformis esp).

I would not trust them with anything that can fit in their mouths......esp the bigger males.....However females are not any less aggressive come feeding time :)

They are eager feeders and will strike at anything dropped into the water and will investigate EVERYTHING that comes within range lol

I have cardinia shrimp in my tank and the rainbows go nose to nose at times with them when they rest near a shrimp, but don't bother them IN ANY WAY, so Iwould think the cherrys are okay.
 

DaveSurfer

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Mar 14, 2005
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Well the cherries get up to only about 1" long at the most, and they are pretty expensive for their size...but I have had lots of different rainbows in the past and I love them. I'm setting up a 33gal tank and I'm not sure how many I should throw in there for a nice school. I like the Red Irian Rainbowfish (Glossolepis incisus) but I know they can get big.

How many should I get with a pretty heavily planted tank?
 

DaveSurfer

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Mar 14, 2005
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By the way, I'd like to grow some nice foreground plants like Glossostigma and some dwarf hairgrass and dwarf baby tears (Hemianthus callitrichoides) for a change in my new 33 gallon that I'll be setting up.

I usually like a good bustle of bottom feeders like corys and a few clown or yoyo loaches. However, since I'm growing a lot of small delicate foreground plants I don't want the bottom feeders to mess around the gravel alot as I know they would do and disturb the growth. I'm sure after the plants get rooted fine it wouldn't be a problem?

I also have noticed that sometimes clown loaches take bites out of more delicate leaved stuff like my hygros that I use to grow.

Opinions on any bottom feeders that would be more compatible? I do like SAEs a lot but as they get bigger they tend to eat more from the surface and mid-level of the tank instead of on the bottom or algae. As you read above I am planning to get 10 or so cherry shrimp so that might be the solution for bottom cleanup?
 

Hilde

Junior Poster
Sep 16, 2008
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I would love to have a school of rainbow fish, but they sell for $15 each.

At present bidding on Glossolepis incisus on Aqua Bid. I read that they tore plants apart in a tank. Anybody else have this problem with rainbow fish?

I have 2 neon rainbow, male , at present. They were sold for $5 as rummnynose tetra. I am planning to build up to a school. What is the best ratio of female to male? Found conflicting info when I googled.
 

markola

Junior Poster
Sep 23, 2009
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Cairns, Qld, Australia
Hi! I'm new here. From North Queensland, Australia. I'm a bit of a rainbow/ blue eye nut, and until recently had not seen them in the shops. I beleive that this is because anyone who wants them will go down to there local creek and get get them, rather than fork out the cash. I am guilty of this, even if non-local species are offered for sale.

Mark.
 

jonny_ftm

Guru Class Expert
Mar 5, 2009
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I kept Praecox and Pseudomugil Furcatus. The Furcatus are one of the best shoaling fish I ever seen. The males are so beautiful, their dances with females are eye catching and the male confrontations in circles are impressing. A beautiful fish that will add life to the aquarium

They are one of my favourite. I stopped keeping them as I think they were not happy in my planted 47in aquarium. In my opinion, they need a large area to swim, nothing below 59in. Also, many try to keep them in acidic low GH water. They won't live long. They'll be much better under slight alcaline water with some GH in my opinion