Return To Tropical Fishkeeping

Glad all's going well, Trish - the frenetic chasing behaviour at the start is indeed normal, often it occurs vertically up and down the glass, so don't be alarmed if you witness this. I've kept fish for years and their behaviour never, ever ceases to fascinate me - the individual behaviour of singly kept goldfish plus the social behaviour of groups of tropical fish.

You have what I would class as mid water fish.

Bottom dwellers include your corys, otocinclus (also need a biofilm), shrimp, dwarf cichlid (only get one in your size tank and don't mix with shrimp), gobies (though I've no experience of these)

For surface dwellers, consider hatchetfish, panchax, or maybe a gourami or group of sparkling gourami (bit more whole tank than the previous couple of suggestions but a different behaviour to your current fish).

I'm sure others will have comments on these and add their own suggestions, but I thought I'd get things started 

Hi Colin and Matt.

Thanks for your suggestions.

I like the 5 banded barbs and Gouramies. Unfortunately, I am limited to what the lfs has in stock.
They don't have any of the 5 banded barbs, but they do have Honey Gouramies. According to the fish calculator, I could have 6 of these and it would bring me up to three quarters full.

Anyone have any experience pf these fish?

Thanks so much for your reply.

My tank is too small, I'm afraid. It's 55x55, but the filter, heater and pump are concealed all along the back of it and the compartment is 25 cm. Leaving me with only 30.

The Gouramies in the shop, by the way were a pale gray, except for one which was an orangey/yellow.
There were 3 large hyperactive catfish in the same tank as them and I thought that this was causing them to be stressed out, and that was why they were that colour.

As for the rainbows.....I don't want boisterous, hyperactive fish, a nice calm tank is what I want, so, thanks for that.

Back to the drawing board.

Thanks Sue, I'll have another look tomorrow.

Meanwhile, my little ones look very happy.....lively, well coloured and eating.

I got some brineshrimp in a gel, made by Tetra. It doesn't have to be refrigerated and it is a bit expensive, but the fish loved it. It is packaged in small sachets, and once opened, only keeps for 24 hrs. It is still too much for my small tank, but someone with multiple tanks, could probably use the whole sachet in the time allowed.

Hi Fiona,
Yes I also got some frozen bloodworm, New Life Spectrum 0.5mm sinking pellets and I am waiting for NLS flake to arrive.
Nothing but the best, lol!

Congrats on the honey gouramies.

What you're describing about the male sounds exactly what I mentioned in my post #121 above - all my tropicals have done it when new in the tank or quarantine tank, and some of them did it when I made some major changes to the tank a few weeks ago. Such behaviour does calm down eventually. Your water quality sounds good, so at least that can be ruled out as a possible cause.

There is one school of thought that says it's due to fish not being able to see the glass. In a new tank they don't know where the glass is, they have to explore it to  find out the extent of the invisible barrier. Once they become familiar with the tank, they have learned where this barrier is so don't have the same need to try to find a way round it.


Maybe?

P@H assistants aren't the most knowledgeable. They are mostly trained on how to sell fish. About 15 years ago I wanted a pair of dwarf gouramis, the natural coloured ones with red and blue striped male/plain silver female. The chap who served me assured me the pale blue one was a female and refused to accept it when I said it was a male so I asked the person on the checkout. She said I'd been given a natural male and a powder blue male and told the chap to swap the blue fish for a silver one. I wondered how many people had gone home with 2 males after he'd told them they had a male and female? I had done my homework so I knew he was wrong.


Even if your colourful one turns out to be a red female, you know that the silvery grey one is a female so you shouldn't have any issues with males fighting over territory. They just won't spawn.
Let them mature a bit and look at the long fins on the back and underneath. If they are very rounded at the tail end, the colourful one is a female red. If they are even slightly pointy, it's a male. This pointiness isn't always obvious in young fish which is why the red ones are harder to tell the sexes apart in shop tanks.

Sounds like a male  It doesn't really matter what colour form he is so long as there is 1 male and 1 female.