I've had two rope fush before... Very nice conversation types...
I've had them both in a tank with tinfoil bards, a red tail shark, a pitcus cat, spotted raphael (my favortites), black tetras, and bala's - oh and some rather large irridecent (sp?) sharks at one time.... Never a problem...
though there was this one time I kept my friends beta in there and the rope and beta got in a fight.. but just once and no harm done.
Mine seemed to like live feeders... I would stock up on feeder guppies, and usually at night you'd hear the rope's jaw snapping shut on them.... After I started feeding him live food, he seemed to never want anything else...
Oh... and they can and will climb out/jump out.