the tyranny of the rainbow turquoise

orangefin

orangefin

AC Members
Oct 19, 2004
5
0
0
49
Kansas City
jeanette.zoeburns.com
hi folks, this is my first post here, although I've lurked for awhile.

I'm having a problem with my rainbow turqoise. I had him in my community tank with 2 pearl gouramis, 2 silverdollars, a loach and a diamond tetra and everything was wonderful, three months later I added 2 three-spot gouramis and 6 more tetras and suddenly he was a tyrant. he herded all the other fish to the right quarter of the tank, and if anyone tried to swin freely he would chase them back.

I tried rearranging the tank, and that worked for about an hour, and then it was back to the herding.

So I moved him to my angelfish tank, and now he chases them all around too, although not as badly as in the community tank.

Any suggestions? I'd read these were very docile fish, and I don't want to lose ANY of my fish.

thanks,
jeanette*
 
What kind of bio-setups do you have? If you have a lot of tall plants and caves in the com. tank it gives them a lot more options as to where to claim territory. Did you try leaving the lights off the tank? If that helps you could look into getting some dimmer lighting. Good luck.
 
Are you sure this is a male? If so, you might be hard pressed to prevent this behavior. Male turquiose build a school, with a dominant male keeping everyone in line. With some other rainbows, he shold leave the other fish alone (at least mine did), but with no other fish, he's forced to just chase the non-rainbows out of his turf, instead of focusing on keeping his school in line. If you have the space, adding a trio of females would likely help out some.
 
oriongirl, how do you tell if it's a male? thanks for the advice, do you think three more rainbows would be ok with the angelfish?

nureil, that advice is just what I did when I rearranged, gave lots more hiding spots to the others, and unfortunately it didn't work. Leaving lights off didn't seem to help either ... thanks though!
 
The males have a thin stip running up the back that will change colors, and will have a large hump as adults--you can't really see it until they are 3+ inches, though. Adding three more big fish might be pushing it a bit for a 30--that's a lot of fish, especially with the common pleco in there. If you swapped him for a smaller cleaner, like a bristlenose (which you'll need to do eventually--commons get up to 18 inches), then you could easily add a pair of females, and that should help some as well.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
AquariaCentral.com
Top Bottom