Loaches Online Forum

With my new 75g setup, I was planning on putting some rainbowfish in with a couple loach species (striata and kubotai). Does anyone have experience with this combo? I've not been able to find any consistant information on the rainbowfish, some say they like hard water, some soft. Some say they're fine in slightly acidic water, etc. So I'm not really sure what to go with and whether the pairing will work.

I was planning on maybe the yellow rainbows, neon (praecox), or bosemanis since those seem to be readily available in the area. Probably a small group (~5) of one of those species with a few more if I go with the smaller neons.

I have kept praecox rainbows with various botias with no problems.

I currently have M.bosemani rainbows in three tanks with botia and have had no compatiblity problems

Oldfish wrote:I currently have M.bosemani rainbows in three tanks with botia and have had no compatiblity problems

I have 2 of the above mentioned rainbows with my botias and clowns and it's all good.

Krista

I keep this combination in my 46g. I have a group of Bosemani with SAE's, rosy loaches and galaxy rasboras. Rainbows will tolerate most community fish. but they are greedy feeders - you'll have to make sure theres enough variety/qty of food so the loaches and bottom feeders get their share. Also, you'll have to make sure to acclimate them to your water conditions. My tank is CO2 injected and heavily buffered, but even then the ph can swing heavily from day to night. Rainbows will be sensitive to that as well as water changes. You'll see that from their colors (the more metallic and vibrant, the less stressed they are.) I'm not sure about other loaches, but my rosy's pay them no attention at all, and will happily swim around them.

Rainbow fish are great for just about any tank. Avoid the species with very long fins, or better yet, stick to the true Botiine loaches, which are generally not aggressive with other fish.

Ok great, so the only major trouble is feeding the bottom feeders and rainbows. Feeding after lights out should remedy that for the most part (?).

Should the rainbows be kept in groups too? What male/female ratio works well? I've seen female heavy groups are best for breeding, but what about general stocking.

Rainbow fish or Rainbow shark? If shark I they got along really well with the clown loaches.

looking at rainbowfish that native to Australia and the surrounding islands, which includes Melanotaenia praecox and related species.

I'm not too excited about rainbow sharks. I've heard various things about them which seems to indicate they have widely varying personalities (with aggressive being one of them)