Adding Rainbows

[zesty]

Hi, any ideas when could I add some Rainbows to my tank please?
Its fairly newly cycled ie, about 3 weeks ago.
Should I wait until the tank matures a bit or could they go in now?

 

[minxfishy]

Tank size? Are your stats holding steady? Which rainbows were you thinking of adding?

 

[zesty]

Tank size? Are your stats holding steady? Which rainbows were you thinking of adding?

Tank is 95usg and 5ft long.

Not having any ammonia or nitrite spikes and nitrates are around 40ppm.

I was thinking of Boesmanis, maybe 6 of them. Not too sure on the male to female ratio though.

thanks

 

[trojannemo]

do you have anything else in that tank? 90G is plenty of space, you could add much more than 6 boesemanis!
in terms of male/female...you could keep all males just fine. if you are going to add females, then i would recommend mininum a 1m:1f ratio, preferably 1m:2f...
personally i keep 2m:1f ratio without any issue so far. for at least 8 months i had about 10 males and 1 female and it was ok. so your experience may vary...

i would wait until your tank was fully cycled before adding 'bows. try to keep nitrites and ammonia at 0ppm and nitrates below 25ppm. one or two large water changes a week will do the trick AFTER the tank is cycled.

good luck!

 

[zesty]

do you have anything else in that tank? 90G is plenty of space, you could add much more than 6 boesemanis!
in terms of male/female...you could keep all males just fine. if you are going to add females, then i would recommend mininum a 1m:1f ratio, preferably 1m:2f...
personally i keep 2m:1f ratio without any issue so far. for at least 8 months i had about 10 males and 1 female and it was ok. so your experience may vary...

i would wait until your tank was fully cycled before adding 'bows. try to keep nitrites and ammonia at 0ppm and nitrates below 25ppm. one or two large water changes a week will do the trick AFTER the tank is cycled.

good luck!

So far I have 6 Tiger Barbs and 4 Blue Gouramis and a Bristlenose.

I had read (not to say its true) that you should keep 1m to 2 females and not to keep males only.

Tank is cycled but not mature, when would you suggest adding rainbows?

Should I add them 1 or 2 at a time to keep any ammonia spikes to a minimum as obviously they will put an increase on the biological filter.

Thanks

 

[minxfishy]

Id wait another couple of weeks, just to ensure the tank is fully capable of handling the bio-load, as ideally you would want to add them as a group of 6 to start with, the larger the group the better, as they enjoy their species company. The ideal ratio is 1m-2f, however, I have 4m, 1f boese and 3m, 2f Lacustris (turquoise) with no problems at all, if you keep all males, you may find they dont display fully as they really colour up in the courtship process, males displaying to the other males to show off to the females.

They will need a minimum of a 50% weekly water change, they flourish with clean water and nitrAtes need to be kept quite low, they can be prone to mouth fungus when the water quality drops.

 

[zesty]

Id wait another couple of weeks, just to ensure the tank is fully capable of handling the bio-load, as ideally you would want to add them as a group of 6 to start with, the larger the group the better, as they enjoy their species company. The ideal ratio is 1m-2f, however, I have 4m, 1f boese and 3m, 2f Lacustris (turquoise) with no problems at all, if you keep all males, you may find they dont display fully as they really colour up in the courtship process, males displaying to the other males to show off to the females.

They will need a minimum of a 50% weekly water change, they flourish with clean water and nitrAtes need to be kept quite low, they can be prone to mouth fungus when the water quality drops.

Ok thanks for that. I will hold off getting some for a while then.