Rainbow Fish Identification?

[Jacob the tank keeper]

I've had these rainbows for a while, just kept them in the side and only remembered them just now. I saw them and was blown away, they had way more color than they used to. Back then someone here told me they were hybrids, but maybe the colored up versions would change something.

Supposedly Crossing Rainbows or Parkinsonis, I got supposedly have both. I have about 8 of these, about 2 of them are colored up and I assume to be males, the rest are gray, I assume to be the females.

I'm considering getting more rainbowfish and restarting my 4ft, setting it up to be a rainbowfish tank or an angel tank, maybe both unless they ain't compatible

 

[Colin_T]

Hybrid

The following link has all the known species of rainbowfishes from Australia and New Guinea. It was written by one of the more knowledgeable people that have kept rainbowfish, Adrian Tappin. Bookmark the link and refer to it if you ever need to ID rainbowfish.

Melanotaeniidae and Pseudomugilidae

A website dedicated to Rainbowfishes of Australia and New Guinea

rainbowfish.angfaqld.org.au

 

[Jacob the tank keeper]

Hybrid

The following link has all the known species of rainbowfishes from Australia and New Guinea. It was written by one of the more knowledgeable people that have kept rainbowfish, Adrian Tappin. Bookmark the link and refer to it if you ever need to ID rainbowfish.

Melanotaeniidae and Pseudomugilidae

A website dedicated to Rainbowfishes of Australia and New Guinea

rainbowfish.angfaqld.org.au

Ohh I see. Might just sell these off or give them away then. I'm planning on making a rainbow Fish community with different species, what do you think? Is there anything to look out for? Specifics like what species I should and shouldn't mix together? So far I'm looking at Blue, Parkingsoni, and, Boesemani. Maybe Reds? But I've heard the temperature they like aren't that compatible

 

[Colin_T]

The main thing with rainbowfish is to keep species that grow to a similar size so the dominant males don't bully smaller males.

Blue rainbows can be Melanotaenia praecox or M. lacustris. The M. lacustris are fine with M. boesemani and M. parkinsoni. Whereas the M. paecox are better off in a tank with smaller species like Glossolepis maculosis & ramuensis, Melanotaenia kamaka, sexlineata, papuae, etc.

New Guinea red rainbows are normally Glossolepis incisus but might be (if your really lucky) G. pseudoincisus. The G. pseudoincisus look very similar but don't get as big and are more peaceful. Big male G. incisus will bully smaller males and these fish need to be kept in large groups of 15 or more so any aggression is spread out and no one fish is the constant target of the bullying. If you have 2 males the same size, they spend virtually all their time sparring with each other.

Feed rainbowfish lots of plant matter, at least half their diet should be plant based. Keep the tank clean with lots of big (75%) water changes, gravel cleaning and cleaning the filter. This reduces the risk of external protozoan infections like Costia, Chilodonella and Trichodina.

Be careful buying M. praecox and some other common rainbows (M. boesemani) because they regularly carry Fish Tuberculosis and there's no cure for it. Once the disease is in the tank, every fish will catch it and die. Unfortunately there's no way of knowing if the fish have the bacteria and it's luck of the draw. If you get fish from a breeder who keeps their fish in single species tanks and doesn't have other species from fish farms in those tanks, there is less chance of the fish having the disease, but it's not 100% guaranteed.

 

[Jacob the tank keeper]

The main thing with rainbowfish is to keep species that grow to a similar size so the dominant males don't bully smaller males.

Blue rainbows can be Melanotaenia praecox or M. lacustris. The M. lacustris are fine with M. boesemani and M. parkinsoni. Whereas the M. paecox are better off in a tank with smaller species like Glossolepis maculosis & ramuensis, Melanotaenia kamaka, sexlineata, papuae, etc.

New Guinea red rainbows are normally Glossolepis incisus but might be (if your really lucky) G. pseudoincisus. The G. pseudoincisus look very similar but don't get as big and are more peaceful. Big male G. incisus will bully smaller males and these fish need to be kept in large groups of 15 or more so any aggression is spread out and no one fish is the constant target of the bullying. If you have 2 males the same size, they spend virtually all their time sparring with each other.

Feed rainbowfish lots of plant matter, at least half their diet should be plant based. Keep the tank clean with lots of big (75%) water changes, gravel cleaning and cleaning the filter. This reduces the risk of external protozoan infections like Costia, Chilodonella and Trichodina.

Be careful buying M. praecox and some other common rainbows (M. boesemani) because they regularly carry Fish Tuberculosis and there's no cure for it. Once the disease is in the tank, every fish will catch it and die. Unfortunately there's no way of knowing if the fish have the bacteria and it's luck of the draw. If you get fish from a breeder who keeps their fish in single species tanks and doesn't have other species from fish farms in those tanks, there is less chance of the fish having the disease, but it's not 100% guaranteed.

Alright, thanks! What's fish tuberculosis?

 

[GaryE]

Fish tb is mainly Mycobacter marinum, though other Mycobacter species are also part of the spectrum. It's a bacterial infection that is untreatable. The fish encysts it internally, but it eventually breaks out.
Mycobacters exist for most species groups, from humans to fish. Fish TB can jump to humans, though it's rare. I caught it years ago when I was otherwise ill and did tank work with an open wound on my hand. 6 months of antibiotics cured it, but I will always test positive for tb antibodies - it's similar enough to human tb.
Human tb spreads in crowding and poor conditions, like slums and prisons, and fish tb thrives on crowded fishfarms.

 

[Colin_T]

The following links have info on fish tb

Questions regarding fish TB

So I have been reading things in Manual of Fish Health and this forum and have a bunch of questions regarding fish TB: 1. Why TB are common in fish from south/asian farm? 2. Can fish get TB even if you don’t buy new fish? 3. I always have cuts on my hand (I don’t know how?) How many percent can...

www.fishforums.net

Positive result for Fish Tb in my tank... what should I do next??

Hi all, So I absolutely love fish keeping and I have had my 120 litre Jewel for a few years now. My tank is home to 15 diamond Tetra, (they won't stop breeding) 5 shrimp and my oldest and grumpiest fish of them all... my 18 year old bristlenose pleco! He's called Gutbucket ☺️ I do weekly water...

www.fishforums.net

 

[Jacob the tank keeper]

Oh alright, thanks y'all!

 

[Jacob the tank keeper]

Fish tb is mainly Mycobacter marinum, though other Mycobacter species are also part of the spectrum. It's a bacterial infection that is untreatable. The fish encysts it internally, but it eventually breaks out.
Mycobacters exist for most species groups, from humans to fish. Fish TB can jump to humans, though it's rare. I caught it years ago when I was otherwise ill and did tank work with an open wound on my hand. 6 months of antibiotics cured it, but I will always test positive for tb antibodies - it's similar enough to human tb.
Human tb spreads in crowding and poor conditions, like slums and prisons, and fish tb thrives on crowded fishfarms.

Oh I see, that's pretty scary... What's some warning signs/symptoms in fish/humans? I always have my hands dipped in my aquariums so... (nevermind, I just read the thread on TB. Hope you're doing better though) Anyways, new fear unlocked I guess

 

[GaryE]

It's long since cured in me. It wasn't that bad, because I am no fish. If I had been, yikes.

 

[Jacob the tank keeper]

It's long since cured in me. It wasn't that bad, because I am no fish. If I had been, yikes.

Hahaha, that's great to hear. Still, I've always had a fear of some sort of disease that I could get from fish, never thought there would actually be one

 

[GaryE]

It's the one. My dog or the neighbour's cat could give me plenty of diseases. My fish just this.

 

[Jacob the tank keeper]

It's the one. My dog or the neighbour's cat could give me plenty of diseases. My fish just this.

Oh, yup. That's why we don't have any. Though, the scariest thing to me about fish TB is that it's hard to identify and drug resistant... Also the fact that fish could pretty much be asymptomatic...