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.
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?
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.
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.