Neon Dwarf Rainbow Fish: Bullying Behaviour?

[loubega]

hi all,

have posted before about my neon rainbows and my previous problems, and they were successfully resolved.
However, a new problem has arisen with them, I have only 2 rainbows now but started off with 4, the first died within the first night of being with me, he was gasping for air from the very begining and put this down to perhaps a dodgy fish or not be acclimitsed very well at the LFS.

The other three survied and have been eating for about 2 weeks now. I think i have 1 male (as he has a red frilly mane around his body and generally looks bigger) and two females (not as red and more orangy and generally smaller), the male is very aggressive and chases the two females around the tank quite a lot, but leaves my other fish - harliquins alone.

I woke this morning to find one of the females dead, but all 3 looked very perky the night before. Is this because of the stress of being chased all the time? is the males behaviour natural? should i add to the 2 i have now to create a bigger shoal will this calm him down? or are the other females actually males and being bullied by a larger male?

any help on this matter would be great

p.s. have heavily planted/co2, jewel rio 125

 

[loubega]

bump??

any help on the behaviour of neon dwarf rainbows...and shoaling etc....

 

[loubega]

please? anyone with any experience of keeping dwarfs??

 

[SharonCC]

They do need a bigger school, if you have room. I have Rainbows, although not the Dwarf variety...

 

[loubega]

They do need a bigger school, if you have room. I have Rainbows, although not the Dwarf variety...

ok thanks,

do you find u have an agressive male? because im pretty sure she died of stress, as the water stats are fine...

might try putting in more later this week....but dont wanna just waste money.....

 

[Colin_T]

all rainbowfishes live in big groups consisting of dominant and subordinant males. The big males bully the smaller ones and try to keep them away from the females. Increasing the number of rainbowfish will help to aleviate the problem. If possible have at least 4 males. Males have red fins and females yellow or orange.
It sounds like your tank has only been set up for a couple of weeks. If this is the case then don't add any new fish until the filters have established, usually about 1 month. Adding new fish to a new tank will only cause more fish losses.

 

[loubega]

all rainbowfishes live in big groups consisting of dominant and subordinant males. The big males bully the smaller ones and try to keep them away from the females. Increasing the number of rainbowfish will help to aleviate the problem. If possible have at least 4 males. Males have red fins and females yellow or orange.
It sounds like your tank has only been set up for a couple of weeks. If this is the case then don't add any new fish until the filters have established, usually about 1 month. Adding new fish to a new tank will only cause more fish losses.

the tank has been set up for about 3 weeks but used matured media from my other filter, so technically it never needed cycling (shoot me now)..i have 12 harliquins in there and 1 Bn and they are perfectly happy, just been having trouble with the rainbows,
firstly i had a problem that they were gasping near the surface but this has stopped (we think due to poor acclimitasition at the LFS)....but suddenly one of the rainbows dies out of the blue....and i have watched the bigger male chase the smaller female (i think) around the tank....so i presume it was stress and bullied

stats are

ammonia -0 (pale yellow)
nitritie - 0 (pale pink----but this was a touch higher..poss 0.1...as it was a bit darker pink...)

on ur advice i wont add any more rainbows...but hopefully the other smaller rainbow will survice untill i add to the shoal...is 6 an optimum number for them?

 

[Colin_T]

Rainbowfish are sensitive to chemicals including chlorine. If you used tap water to fill the tank with and it wasn't dechlorinated, it could have been why the first rainbowfish died. Low oxygen levels will also do that to them. If the fish was in the bag for too long the oxygen levels could have dropped and stressed it out, leading to its death.
High ammonia, nitrite & nitrate levels will cause rainbows to panic and dash about the tank. Low PH will also do that.
If you have plants in the tank it will give the female somewhere to hide if she is getting hassled. Lowering the temperature to about 22C will help reduce the male's eagerness to breed.
Feed the rainbows lots of plant matter, vege flake, etc.
6-10 rainbows is a nice group but it depends on tank size. My community tanks would house 12-20 adult rainbowfish in tanks with 160 litres of water. They were well filtered and water changed each week. My breeding tanks would get 8 fish (4prs).
8 is a better number than 6 and if possible have 4prs rather than more males than females.
If you lose a fish then wait a couple of weeks before adding any new ones.

 

[drobbyb]

I agree with Colin_T. You need a larger group so that the agression and breeding behavior dosen't stress out a single fish. You need at least 6 in a group and want more females than males (that is if you plan to keep females.) M. Praecox (aka Dwarf Neon Rainbowfish) are a sensitive fish as suggested by Colin_T. You also need to be performing weekly 50% water changes. Their temperature needs to be between 72° F and 77° F. Temperatures above 77° F will shorten their lifespan.

Colin_T has already covered that they need vegetables. I suggest you feed them spirulina flakes as a staple. Only feed frozen foods once or twice a week. Feed cooked shelled peas a couple of times a week. Once they get larger you can feed them a small floating or slow sinking vegetable pellet as a staple along with the flakes and frozen/live food. They love blackworms, brine shrimp and other similar sized live foods. Remember that their throats are narrow and they might choke on something that's too big for them to swallow.

The tank should be well planted (plastic counts, but real are better) with hiding places. You can use driftwood, rocks, anything really that's suitable for the aquarium. Rainbows show their colors better if they are kept over a dark substrate. Their tank should be at least 30 inches long as they need alot of room to swim.

 

[loubega]

I agree with Colin_T. You need a larger group so that the agression and breeding behavior dosen't stress out a single fish. You need at least 6 in a group and want more females than males (that is if you plan to keep females.) M. Praecox (aka Dwarf Neon Rainbowfish) are a sensitive fish as suggested by Colin_T. You also need to be performing weekly 50% water changes. Their temperature needs to be between 72° F and 77° F. Temperatures above 77° F will shorten their lifespan.

Colin_T has already covered that they need vegetables. I suggest you feed them spirulina flakes as a staple. Only feed frozen foods once or twice a week. Feed cooked shelled peas a couple of times a week. Once they get larger you can feed them a small floating or slow sinking vegetable pellet as a staple along with the flakes and frozen/live food. They love blackworms, brine shrimp and other similar sized live foods. Remember that their throats are narrow and they might choke on something that's too big for them to swallow.

The tank should be well planted (plastic counts, but real are better) with hiding places. You can use driftwood, rocks, anything really that's suitable for the aquarium. Rainbows show their colors better if they are kept over a dark substrate. Their tank should be at least 30 inches long as they need alot of room to swim.

thanks for the response,

my tank is heavily planted, with 2 bits of bogwood, and a slate cave- so shelter is no problem. Tank is about 32 inches long so that should be enough room as you mention 30 is minimum.

The temperature is 76 F and has quite high pH just about 8Ph maybe a touch below i need a better ph tester than the broad range i got with the master test kit. Also i always use dechlorinator when water changing

I orignally had 4 but as previously covered in another topic one died very quickly and going back to the LFS i noticed alot of the dwarfs behaving in the same way as mine did in my tank. The second dwarf to die was totally unexpected and i beleive to be because of the bullying male dwarf, i just assumed they were very passive from what i read on the internet.

Cheers for the heads up on the food, i currently feed flake and tetra pro colour discs but i mash them up so they are smaller, i also use freeze dried daphina and bloodworm, but will use ur advice and feed shelled peas and other vegies.

I was going to add another 4 so the shoal was 6 but will wait for a few weeks like you said untill i add anymore.

thanks