All The Pretty Colors Of Rainbowfish!

[MoonstruckMuse]

I walked into the lovely Petco near my house the other day, and spotted some very interesting looking "Loreto Tetras". In fact, they seemed to be very interestingly built and colored... something like that of Rainbowfish, really. Apparently the staff was also newly being trained, and the fish section had just been reorganized, with half the pictures labelling the wrong fish. Loreto Tetra had no picture.
...So I got 2 lovely ones for the price of $1.32 each, and another that the guy realized couldn't have been a Loreto because he was a different color, and randomly priced at $5.

And at my other LFS, he had another decent deal (but actual rainbowfish prices, haha), so we bought those guys too. Hahaha. ^^

However, we bought the last couple of each place, so... they can't really shoal by species - all of them are shoaling together though, so I guess we'll just keep it that way.

Red Fish

Blue Fish

One Fish

Two Fish!

Rainbow Fish

The "Blue fish" was sold as a Blue Rainbowfish, the rainbowfish was just labelled Rainbowfish, and erm, I have 3 of the "Two Fish" on the right The left one of that pic is the same as the "blue fish". One of the blues also turns blackish whenever the lights go out for a while, though the others don't. And the Two Fish are two differently colored fish, though the pictures really don't show that well.

So yeah, have fun IDing, pretty please with a cherry ontop?

 

[Lateral Line]

The Red is probably Glossolepis incisus, the Blue Melanotaenia lacustris, although the picture is not that good. The last one, with the red stripes looks like what I've always known as Melanotaenia maccullochi, but several recent pictures I've seen labelled as that species look somewhat different. The others maybe Melanotaenia trifasciata but again, it is not easy from the pictures.

Indeed, the Rainbow group is generally somewhat difficult as there are many similar species, and sadly, there are a lot of hybrids around being sold as "species". The above suggestions are best guesses based on what I can see, and what I know to be regularly imported.

 

[MoonstruckMuse]

Oh wow, that was fast. Wasn't expecting that, to be honest, haha.

Thanks! I was trying to muck through all the species myself, but erm, there's quite a few more then I expected, haha. And oh geez, I didn't even consider hybrids.
For the supposed Maccullochi, he was stocked as just generic "Rainbowfish" though the others were all labelled (emerald, blue, yellow, boesemani, parkinsoni were also offered). He was also retailed as the cheapest & most common Rainbow there, at $3.99 at about 2". The guy also said it was the "Australian Rainbow." Does that seem right?
The other ones that sort of look like Triaisciata.... don't match what they look like in real life, haha. They've got similar coloring to the lacustris juvie, but a bit more blue on the belly region and the tops of their head are a bright orangeyred, fading to yellow then green/blue as it goes over their back. A true rainbow, really. Could that be something else?