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I wasn't going to buy one of these, cause of aggression ( though I wanted to). I accepted one from a 10 Gal. owner & thought it was doing fine in my 55 Gal., untill I watched it at night!

I've had it for weeks now & it comes out some during the day just browsing around for food & not bothering the other fish. Even when I feed floating food he just skims along the bottom with the two cories & two upsidedown catfish & small pleco.

I feed sinking shrimp pellets & algae wafers at night after turning off tank lights but leave on a 40 wt. lamp in living room as a sort of night light. Had noticed some scurring around in the tank but just looked like normal feeding for the bottom dwellers. The last two nights I actually sat & watched for awhile. Last night, I even turned a light back on to make sure of what I was seeing! That "peaceful" Rainbow shark was chasing away any sepae tetra or tiger barb that came near the food. Not just casually chasing away but violently chasing each one to the point of exhaustion! The other fish (guppies, zebra danios, red eyed tetras) & bottom dwellers he just more or less warned or gave short chase to. I wondered how a serpae turned up with with a skinned face one day?

So much for my wanting a Rainbow Shark in a community tank! Never again. And he is a beauty too. I'll miss him. Free to good home: One Rainbow Shark.......... true to species description. ; )

Hi there,
even the most peaceful Rainbow shark will chase
other fish occassionally. Espescially if they are
after his/her food or territory.
So long as you arent seeing any physical damage on
the chased fish, you should be fine to keep the shark.
One suggestion is, try dropping the pellets in at random
places, not all in one place. This way the other fish have choice and dont have to go after the sharks food.
Also, they often will be more aggressive to fish with
red coloration. Its possible the serpaes red color is
causing the shark to think its another shark in the dark.


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Good suggestion on the feeding Sneaky, only I think I'll carry it a step further. I noticed "He" mostly goes after the fish that eat close to his cave at the one end of the tank, 48" long. I have been spreading the pellets & wafers along the length of the tank. I will avoid spreading the food on his side of the tank from now on, so that he is forced to feed out of his territory & others won't feed in his & see if that helps.

My shark could be attracked to red coloring? Hmmm that might explain his aggression toward the serpaes & tiger barbs. And here I thought it might be cause they were some of the other meanest fish in the tank!

I did see the face damage on one serpae. Also one male guppy was found dead close to his cave one am. & the other two male guppies just disappeared (not fancy either, 2 blue tails & one black.)? They were new fish, so just thought they had something & died. The new female guppies I got at the same time are fine though?

Now that I see the violence this shark carries out on nighttime intruders, I will watch more carefully. An occasional chase among the fish doesn't bother me, but the amount of vengence this shark has & with the speed in which he carries it out just shocked me last night! I was amazed the chased fish didn't try to jump the tank in order to escape him, as each seperate chase took about 10 laps around the tank! That is one determined shark!

I would think all this violent chasing would not be good for the other fish in the tank trying to get out of the way? I also have two angels that I heard do not like a rowdy tank. I thought I had a decent tank till I got on the net & read up about fish! My profile will show that I have some decisions to make about the current occupants & the numbers.
Thanks so much for your reply!

As an update............. I have been feeding the sinking food on the opposite side of the tank then where the shark has his cave. The violent chasing has went down quite a bit. Instead of 10 laps around the tank, he now chases only about 2 laps.

This is still more violence than I like in my tank. "Can't they all just get along?" Ha!
I suppose I can put up with this for............. I don't know how long? But if I can ever find a good home for this Grumpy Guss, I think I will. "They can be a bit territorial?" Aha! Now I know what that means!

I have a Rainbow shark in my 55G with a pair of Convicts. Lets just say that I lost my original female of 3 years because of the shark. Not the nicest fish in the world but very pretty.

55G Planted tank thread
19G Container Pond
[IMG]http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y118/Wingsdlc/Ric

Awwww sorry for your loss. Wow, a Convict! Think I will keep a closer watch on my little fishies! Yes, these are pretty fish, but to me, not worth it. There are other pretty bottom dwellers out there........... though probably not in my area. If I didn't already have a pleco & there was a mango pleco at my LFS I would get that. I saw a beautiful one in someones private pictures on a site, but I don't remember the site? I think it was titled, "I love my pleco!". Anyway it was a bright green with bright yellow edged fins. Beautiful! It put to shame the one I saw on the species picture.

Nice pics of your tanks! I love your green thumb! I'm starting out with Wal-Mart bulbs. Four have come up so far & one is blooming. Mine aren't the healthiest of plants cause I do nothing special & just have regular lighting........... but hey.......... for a beginner, I do have live plants in my tank! For right now I'm satisfied with that.

I didn't see any pictures of your shark? But that's ok.......... I know what they look like.

You know I went looking through my pictures and I couldn't find one of my shark. I guess next time I get to use someones camera I will try to get a picture of it. It hangs out in one of my 55G's.

Right now my main tank is the 40G planted tank. Thanks for the nice comments! This tank has been through quite a bit. I have learned a lot along the way.

You too can do great plants even in lower light. Check out Keithgh's tank. All low light plants and it looks great!

http://s20.photobucket.com/albums/b209/keithgh/

55G Planted tank thread
19G Container Pond
[IMG]http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y118/Wingsdlc/Ric

You're right Wingsdic, his tank looks great! And so do his good sized fish! You can tell that's a guys tank! It seems a lot of guys have a tendency to like the bigger fish & the meaner the better! I know....... there's many exceptions.......... we don't need to get into that.

I noticed his plants were big & thick leafed. Maybe that's what grows in low light? Your plants were more delicate. I like the delicate look. It looks more light & airy in your tank. But I'm not even going to get into plants right now. Before anything I need to get test kits I guess & decide what to do about my water. It's hard well water. My tank is cloudy cause I put Melaxfix in it for a week with no filter running cause an angel had a fin disappearing. (came from the store that way & hubby didn't notice) It died & now & a couple guppies have what I am calling "white band" disease. (not fungus) One died, the other is on it's way. I only have one filter, maybe I need two cause it's been running for days & still not really clear? Ahhhhh typical beginner's story, I guess.

So............I am off subject. They can put this in the plant forum, or the disease forum, or the technical tinkering forum cause of my filter. But back on subject........ I took shark out of the tank last night. My other fish acted too stressed & personally I just didn't like seeing it chase that way. I like my nippy serpae tetras a lot better now.

I will eventually get my tank straighteded out.........no more disease, water good, & restocked with decent schools.......... even if I have to post on this forum to do it. AND THEN if I am still interested in my aquarium I might see about plants. You could take all my posts on this whole site, put it in story form & title it, "What's wrong with this picture?
?"

Bottom feeding tip.

Step 1: Find an old, suprplus piece of undergravel filter uplift tube. Preferably one with a nice wide diameter so that you can insert a finger into the tube without it getting stuck.

Step 2 : Place sinking pellet in tube, held in place by a finger.

Step 3 : Insert other end of tube into aquarium where you want to deposit the sinking pellet.

Step 4 : Release the pellet.

Repeat above steps, positioning the pellets at widely spaced locations.

I do this to give my Otocinclus a chance to reach the algae tablets before my madcap Panda Corys find them all and demolish them.

In fact I might even put together some pics showing how it's done ... watch this space ...


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

Good invention Cali! Only you ought to put it in the bottom feeder frenzy forum where it talks about bottom dwellers, so more people will see it, or even in the general freshwater forum. Yeah, some people would need pictures to see how it's done. I don't have otos, so I can't try it.