tank mates for Schistura mahnerti

[glenna]

Hi,
I currently have five of these little beauties in a 20 gallon tank by themselves. I feel they need a bigger tank and a lot more flow. They have a lot of disorganized flow by way of extra,extra filtration but not a stream-type flow as of yet. They are VERY pretty and incredibly fast! They all get along amazingly well (they pile up together when I do a water change and do not seem to fight at all, which is contrary to what I have read about them). I am really quite sure that they are Schistura mahnerti and have posted pics here where others have concurred with the ID.

Any thoughts on what fish would make acceptable tank mates? optimal tank size and general set up?

thanks for sharing your thoughts!

[BoiseNoise]

Hi, Glenna,

I have no idea what would be optimal, but I will tell you about my experience. I have only one of these guys in a small (15 gallon?) unheated tank. There is no special power flow, because really the filter provides quite a bit of flow in a tank this small. He shares the tank with a couple of scarlet badis, three white cloud mountain minnows, a sumo loach, and three hillstream loaches (two are sewellia lineolata . . . not sure what the other is, but it is pale and spotted). My choices are limited because the tank is small and because its temperatures range from about 65 degrees in winter to 80 in summer.

I have read that having "dither fish" swimming around in the upper layers will help to make the schistura loaches more comfortable and outgoing. Maybe this is not an issue when you have five together, but since I only have two, I took this into consideration.

I have some smooth rocks placed strategically around the bottom of the tank to break up the lines of sight because I had read that this helps to reduce the schistura's aggression. I'm not sure if it actually does that, but the schisturas do seem to enjoy slithering around in the little channels between the rocks.

The tank has an artificial cave. The schisturas spend a lot of time in there. I also have a java fern and some fake plants in the tank. One of the fake plants has very wide, solid leaves, and the schisturas like to squeeze in between two of the plastic leaves and just rest in there. Sometimes one of the hillstream loaches will join them in these hiding places. Instead of being territorial, the schistura mahnerti and the sumo loach hang out together quite a lot, sometimes stretching out right against each other and lying like that, motionless, for a long time.

The only aggression I have seen towards any of their tankmates was when one of the White Clouds lost an eye shortly after I had purchased the sumo loach. This particular White Cloud was rather pushy, and I think he got too close to the loach at feeding time. I was worried that one of the scarlet badis might get eaten, since they are tiny and slow-moving, but the loaches have completely ignored them. Maybe it's because the scarlet badis are rather shy and retiring and tend to hang out in the plants (each of them has claimed a particular plant as his own!)

Anyway, that's my set-up. I'm sure your choices will be very different since is your tank is a different size and presumably a different temperature from mine.