Mixed Schooling In Rainbowfish

[Scrotius]

I'm planning the stocking of my new tank and I am making it almost exclusively Rainbowfish.
My problem is that they all look so cool I just want to have one of each!!!
Normally it's recommended that you have schools of atleast 6 or 7 for schooling fish.
I have 7 Praecox Rainbows and 1 Red Rainbow (rescued) and he has always happily schooled with the others - I reckon he thinks hes a very large praecox! They will all be moving into the new tank.
What have been your experiences (and your advices) with mixing schools of rainbows, if it helps all the species I'm looking at will be of the Melanotaenia family (except the red)
If I have to stick with shoals of 6+ then I can maybe go for 2 or 3 shoals of the smaller varieties. If i can mix them into one shoal then I could go for a more technicoloured dreamcoat effect!

 

[drobbyb]

You can mix the species. A lot of rainbow keepers do this. The only thing that might throw a wrench in to the system is the praecox are a small rainbow and might get picked on by the bigger ones. Just watch their behavior and be ready to intervene if the big boys get too rough.

Trojannemo has a nice tank with mixed species. Pictures of his fish. Here's a video of his mixed rainbow tank.

Here's a video of my mixed species tank.

 

[Scrotius]

thanks drobbyb, that is what I was hoping to hear

 

[trojannemo]

as drobbyb said I have had mixed rainbows for a while. like yourself I like most rainbowfish and don't have tank space to have shoals of each species. what i have noticed is, that unlike your fish, my M. praecox and G. incisus don't get along too well...and it's the M. praecox that is always trying to bully the much bigger G. incisus! i've had this M. praecox for about 1.5 years and he was picking fights with my last group of G. incisus. those were rehomed a long time ago, and now i have another male G. incisus and the same M. praecox is back to picking fights with the new guy

but they work well together in general

 

[Scrotius]

wow! my Incisus is around twice the size of my largest Praecox, they never try it on with him, sometimes he gets a bit rowdy in the mornings when he's displaying but it never gets too violent.
My new tank has plently of cover for the little ones to hide if things kick off, I reckon they'll be ok
I'm gonna be sticking with smaller species like the Herbertaxelrodi, so in terms of size the Incisus will probs still be the top dog - nothing larger