Are Bosemani's And Praecox's Ok Together?

[Rogue4Fish]

Because I added my Bosemani's to the tank today and the Praecox's are going mad, and seem to have developed a big yellow stripe along the front of their foreheads! Not sure if this is aggressive because they feel threatened.

Currently have 4 Praecox and 5 Bosemani's. It's only the 2 bigger Praecox's that are going mad.

 

[KittyKat]

How many males and females of each? Tank size?

In practice, those groups are too small.. and I think the two factors above probably have something to do with the aggression as well.

 

[Rogue4Fish]

2m2f praecox (it was 3, but i've woken up to find a half eaten fish floating in my tank today!)
2m3f bosemani.

I'm off out to get another 5f praecox today. Hopefully it'll sort the ratio out a bit.

 

[KittyKat]

Tank size?

 

[Rogue4Fish]

48gal.

4ft wide.

 

[jpeterson]

I would personally only keep one species. At the moment my tank has lots of different schooling species in and its not very good.

 

[KittyKat]

More females of both species will fix the problem, I think. If you don't have any plants, adding some should also help a bit.

I would personally only keep one species. At the moment my tank has lots of different schooling species in and its not very good.

I also prefer only one species.

 

[Rogue4Fish]

I've only got 4 schooling species...I try and buy more of the same fish as I think they look better and feel more comfortable.

They've calmed down now anyway...just an initial panic!

 

[mikev]

The stripe indicates spawning mood, not aggression. However, full grown boesemanis are much larger than praecox and often aggressive... I would not keep them together.

 

[Le Sorcier]

Never had any problems with my Rainbows. Even though I have too many Males to Females too.

 

[drobbyb]

Never had any problems with my Rainbows. Even though I have too many Males to Females too.

That's the thing, what works in one person's tank may not necessarily work in another. It's the same with any livestock, fish included. If we tried to group humans into the same housing criteria as fish we find that what works in one person's house may be largely different from what works in your house. It's because we are all individual. The same thing applies here.

When I worked in a LFS long ago we had a full grown red oscar that happily lived with a single goldfish. That goldfish was a feeder fish, and for whatever reason the ocsar let it grow up in his tank. Based on that tank, you should be able to keep small goldfish with oscars right?

As far as stocking rules apply, there really aren't any set in stone rules. You kind of have to feel it(I know what you are thinking, but my parents didn't get involved with the Hippy movement LOL.) It is always a good thing to follow guidelines, but know that they aren't absolute.