Rainbowfish

[dpatte]

Though Australian Ranbows have been in the hobby a long time, there are so many species available now that I can't tell them apart.

Through some magic, I seem to have 3 gorgeous blue rainbowfish - about 3 inches long, and have no idea what they are, perhaps Melanotaenia lacustris.

They are currently in a coolish 75 gallon tank with barbs, and i was wondering if anyone has some good advice for rainbows, (temp - diet - water conditions) and what would make good tank-mates.

I tend to keep fish with other fish from the same area but know very little about Australian fish in general.

[dpatte]

Well i did some studying on fishbase.org and discovered that this fish is actually from Papua Island in the Indonesian archipelego, The East Indies.

So i tracked down possible tankmates that come from Indonesia and Papua, and wow - what alot of great fish to choose from!

- Pearl danios offer the races of zebra danios, but with an opelescent pearl colour.

- Clown loaches come from Papua

- Many puntius barbs - such as the tiger barb and several others are from the area

- kissing gouramis - those pink things - does anyone sell those anymore?

- blue gouramis

- glass perch

- many rasboras

- and loaches loaches loaches.

So, just to be different, I think my next tank will be an east indies tank. Looking forward to setting it up.

Who is carrying nice clown loaches these days?

[Evan]

I have seen some decent ones at SP Kanata in the past.

I bought a few this weekend at barrhaven.  They are OK  one looked a little weak.  Fortunately I have a hospital tank, I was able to put some snails in for them  it's only been a few days and they look a lot better.


They are all small, a little over an inch.  Overall I am pleased with them.

[ambushman2j]

we had pink kissers not long ago, but they never stay healthy for long..only good loaches we have are pakistani loaches, took care of them myself.