Rainbowfish Stocking

[curlyriff]

Hello everyone,

I haven't been on here in what must be around a year due to other commitments and a slight loss of interest but am now back and still have my Rena 4ft tank running. Now I have become very interested in Rainbowfish while away and am doing a low tech planted tank.

I am wondering what sort of quantity I could stock rainbow fish wise in my tank. Dimensions are 120x50x60cm (LxDxH) and works out around 360ltr not including decor and substrata displacement. So probably looking at around 290ltr after that.

My current stocking is

• 9x Botia Loach
• 6x Starlight Pleco
• 1x Redtail Shark
• 1x Red Rainbow (Fully grown adult)
• 1x Boesemani Rainbow (2")
• 2x Amano Shrimp
• 2x Pangasius

My filtration is an Eheim Pro II and I am picking up a Koralia Evo 5200 in the coming weeks to increase tank flow as I am looking to do a heavily planted tank. With this in mind any idea on how many Rainbow fish I can stock would be great.

The current Red Rainbow can be re-homed if needed when introducing more rainbows if people think that with him being a fully grown adult that it may cause aggressive behaviour to the new tank mates although has been very good with all the other inhabitance and was introduced from a friends tank and never shown distress towards the Pangasius or the other Rainbow.

The Pangasius are being re-homed soon anyway as they were rescued from a bad pet store in my town that was selling them to people like they was tetra (they were only about 1" when got them) and selling people 10-15 to [font="arial][size="2"]school which was silly so I brought allot and re-homed many with just these two left that are now a good 5" long. The pet store has since stopped selling them as they were unaware of what they were.[/size][/font]
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[font="arial][size="2"]Any input and/or help most appreciated. [/size][/font]
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[font="arial][size="2"]Kind Regards,[/size][/font]
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[font="arial][size="2"]Adam[/size][/font]

 

[KittyKat]

I recommend that you change your stocking to:

• 9x Botia loaches (are they one species?)
• 6x starlight pleco
• 1x redtail shark
• 3m 3-4f red rainbow
• 3m 3-4f boesemani rainbow
• 2x Amano shrimp (might become dinner in the future)

You have a reasonable sized tank, and the existing rainbows should benefit from more of their own kind (do avoid getting all males, even though females can be difficult to find sometimes) and think of getting more in those sort of groups. Without actually seeing the tank and knowing more details about it, it's a bit difficult to say that it would 100% take this or that stocking, but I think that it should be able to take another species of rainbow in that configuration (3m 3-4f per species). Avoid dwarf rainbows, but any of the larger bodied ones (starting from dwarf neon rainbows) should work fine. If you do go for a smaller species like dwarf neons, then you should be able to have a few more than of the larger species. You might want to consider buying eggs and hatching your own rainbows, if you're after some more experience with them, but adults will be more satisfying for a display tank quicker, of course.

 

[curlyriff]

I recommend that you change your stocking to:

• 9x Botia loaches (are they one species?)
• 6x starlight pleco
• 1x redtail shark
• 3m 3-4f red rainbow
• 3m 3-4f boesemani rainbow
• 2x Amano shrimp (might become dinner in the future)

You have a reasonable sized tank, and the existing rainbows should benefit from more of their own kind (do avoid getting all males, even though females can be difficult to find sometimes) and think of getting more in those sort of groups. Without actually seeing the tank and knowing more details about it, it's a bit difficult to say that it would 100% take this or that stocking, but I think that it should be able to take another species of rainbow in that configuration (3m 3-4f per species). Avoid dwarf rainbows, but any of the larger bodied ones (starting from dwarf neon rainbows) should work fine. If you do go for a smaller species like dwarf neons, then you should be able to have a few more than of the larger species. You might want to consider buying eggs and hatching your own rainbows, if you're after some more experience with them, but adults will be more satisfying for a display tank quicker, of course.

Thanks for feedback and the details. The stocking seems ideal to what I was looking at and I am glad I am able to keep the Redtail as he is great. I hope the Amano shrimp live but yeah I know what you mean. They came with the tank and were fun so didn't want to re-home them. They have made it 18months with the current inhabitants though so can't be too bad.

I am surprised slightly by the quantity in a good way though with the number of rainbow fish. I am always worried about overstocking my tank and I will probably keep the numbers slightly lower anyway's just to be on the safe side say around 2 males with 3 females. What other details would you like to know about the tank in details to confirm the stocking and I will try and post photos later to help as well.

If I am to place my Koralia Evo 5200 am I right to assume they like flow as this would give me an 17x turnover with the powerhead alone and the Eheim is around 3x filter circulation.​

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I don't think I am ready to start from hatching just yet but am looking to buy young and watch them grow up and will progress onto hatching later.​

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Kind Regards,​

​

Adam​

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Edit: Yes the Botia are all the same species from the same breeder.​

 

[KittyKat]

I am surprised slightly by the quantity in a good way though with the number of rainbow fish. I am always worried about overstocking my tank and I will probably keep the numbers slightly lower anyway's just to be on the safe side say around 2 males with 3 females. What other details would you like to know about the tank in details to confirm the stocking and I will try and post photos later to help as well.

Well, with those numbers, the tank will look crowded, and I personally do prefer to see more plants than movement in my tanks… but the volume does allow for the high stock. The reason I recommend at least 6 per species is because they are a shoaling group of fish, so I like to see reasonable groups. Also, with larger number, the males should have better colour as they will have females to compete for, but I would be a bit worried about keeping only two males per species in case one decides that it doesn't like the other one (with three, the aggression would be spread over two).

To really be quite confident and certain about what a tank would take, I would need to see the decor, observe the behaviour of the current inhabitants, have readings for the water over a few weeks, know the maintenance routine, including all details, know the full history of the tank. In short, I would need to be familiar with the tank and know how it feels… which isn't that practical, really but given the tank size and current stock, it's not too difficult to take a guess at what one can expect from the tank.

 

[curlyriff]

Well, with those numbers, the tank will look crowded, and I personally do prefer to see more plants than movement in my tanks… but the volume does allow for the high stock. The reason I recommend at least 6 per species is because they are a shoaling group of fish, so I like to see reasonable groups. Also, with larger number, the males should have better colour as they will have females to compete for, but I would be a bit worried about keeping only two males per species in case one decides that it doesn't like the other one (with three, the aggression would be spread over two).

To really be quite confident and certain about what a tank would take, I would need to see the decor, observe the behaviour of the current inhabitants, have readings for the water over a few weeks, know the maintenance routine, including all details, know the full history of the tank. In short, I would need to be familiar with the tank and know how it feels… which isn't that practical, really but given the tank size and current stock, it's not too difficult to take a guess at what one can expect from the tank.

Thanks KK,

You have been most useful and noted about the numbers then. MA are happy to make sure I have the right M/F numbers and will order in as per your reccomendations.

Well the decor will be shown later in pics so that is one of the list. Water wise, I have a steady 25degree temp, PH is 7.6, Nitrate is steady between 0 and 5ppm which should stay constant as I increase the inhabitants of the tank and plants at a similar rate. I have not detected either Nitrite or Ammonia in the last 18 months of testing using API freshwater master kit about once every two weeks and they seem stable.

Maintenance is gravel vac every 7 days which equates to about 10% water change. I do not dose anything in the tank. Filter clean using tank water from the the water change is done around every 4 months. I also refill water from the tank into the filter once cleaned so I end up doing about 20% water change every 4 months rather than 10% in that week. I have cleaned the pipes through once since it has been running using a pressure hose from tank water just to keep large debris from clogging the pipes.

I have recently changed the planting and am adding more as my stock increases to try and keep the levels correct but most the plants seem pretty healthy. Hopefully this will become clear once I get the photos later. The tank is going to be more planted than it is currently but am trying some new ones out before I restock and let them establish first. Just pre empting my options for stocking in the next few months.

Personality of my fish seem all around chilled out. As stated the larger Rainbow seems happy chilling out and has never harassed the other fish. Although the Pangasius will get re-homed they currently also just chill out by themselves and although they get grumpy at each other every now and again they haven't bothered the other fish currently. The loaches are just super playful. My Plecos just seem to chill out on the bogwood most the day watching things go by and the Redtail loves to hoover around the tank and plants all day and often interacts with the Loaches in a playful manner as they are currently similar size.

Edit: Oh and the shrimp seem to chill out on one particular bogwood within the Anubias plants on there and pretty much never leave that area without getting harassed atm.

 

[curlyriff]

Here are some quick photos. Would take better ones but haven't had chance to play with camera settings yet so sorry about that.

 

[KittyKat]

Before we go any further, can you do me a favour and measure that beast? It looks way over the 15 cm that they're supposed to get to! If all of them grow to that size, I'd be tempted to stick to just those two species that you already have, maybe with something smaller for a filler, if you want to see more activity.

 

[curlyriff]

He is actually about 17/18cm. Hard to measure but that was the best I can get easily. He has been that big since I was donated him about 12 months ago. He came from a friends tank who had him for about 2 years before and was that size then as well so it was from the previous owner again which I know was around 4 years that he got that big which makes him around 7 years old. So guessing he has pretty much lived most his life if going off average age.

Kind Regards,

Adam