Mixing Rainbowfish Species in a School

[bradlgt21]

I currently have 6 Mel. Parva rainbowfish. They are a bright orange color, the common name are sunset rainbows so you can imagine the colors. I also believe I have them listed as my avatar and profile pics on here. Anyway I have room to get another 4 or so of them. I am torn between just getting a large group of Parva's and getting something that is a contrast. Say like a blue rainbowfish.

Will they look good together? Will they school in the same group or will they separate into 2 schools? In your opinion what will look better 10-12 or the same fish or 6 and 6 of contrasting colors of the same type of fish?

 

[Fractalis]

well you will have a "rainbow"
if you get different colors

 

[Fishfriend1]

I would like to know this as well. I hope to get 5 praecox rainbows and 5 red irian rainbows for my 75, if they won't get along that could pose a problem...

 

[Plague]

They'll get along and sometimes school together. Just like if you were to have neon tetras with ember tetras they would hang out together. But imo its better just to have a large group of a single species. You get this large ball of fish playing follow the leader rather than two blobs going about their own business. Sure they'll school, but not tightly as if the same species.

 

[digitalphrage]

Yeah, this one pretty much comes down to your personal preference, there'd be pros and cons to both.

Personally, my taste is geared towards keeping things simple, so I'd go towards having only a single schooling species. Aesthetically, it just looks more appealing and I feel like the larger the school, the more interesting the behaviors that emerge.

While I do have tanks where I put lots of different species together and have a jungle assortment of plants, over all the ones I find myself spending the most time watching are those with only 1 or 2 plant species and 1 or 2 fish species. I guess too many different things just become a distraction.

Obviously this equation changes at some point depending on a lot of factors, one of the most important being the size of the tank (compared to the size of the fish). There's definitely a point where you need several different kinds of fish (or perhaps a couple distinct schools) to really fill the tank out and to cover the lower, mid-level, and upper strata.

 

[Greggz]

Personally I prefer a mix. I like seeing flashes of different colors throughout the tank.

Too many beautiful species to keep only one. In my tank I have 7 different Rainbow Species, and am always on the look out for something new as well.

I've kept Rainbows for quite a while, and they all get along. I've never had a problem mixing them at all.

 

[pacpac2]

I also have many types of rainbows intermingling. Never had a problem with aggression. I also like the variety of colors and believe it or not, they hang out in different levels of the tank. Not all at the top, middle, or bottom. Great fish, not smart by any means, but they are attention hogs.

 

[spencerguy1]

Itll be fine. Go onto youtube, and watch some videos from dustinsfishtanks. He has mixed rainbowfish in a bunch of his tanks.

 

[Greggz]

Here's a video of my tank with various Rainbows.

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[TheFishBoss97]

i think rainbows prefer at least 5 of each species in a tank unless u have lots of them(meaning 12+), i would do 6 of those, and 6 of another species...........IME, this is true as i tried 4 boesemanis and 6 dwarf neons and it didn't quite work out............