# Rainbow Sharks in communities



## Rosko_22

I've kept both rainbows and red-tails, and rainbows are much less aggressive than red-tails ime.
I think these fish can be excellent additions to a community tank, especially a well planted one. 
I'd recommend getting a small rainbow, no more than two inches if possible as they seem to be less aggressive as juveniles. If you do have aggression problems try moving the cave or the whole layout of the tank as this can help stop aggression.
I've successfully kept rainbow sharks with rummies, penguin tetras, zebra danios, cherry barbs, and black neons. The zebras would get chased sometimes, but I think that's just because they're such active swimmers and didn't really respect the sharks cave as much as they should.:icon_bigg 
All in all, I'd say go for it, they are very cool, good-looking fish and they'll graze on some of your algae for ya.


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## meee

ive got one in a 30g community with high fin tetras, red eye tetras, cherry barbs, odessa barbs, and a pleco. its a little aggressive (chases some of the fish, mainly the odesa barbs), but nothing to really worry about. just dont get more than one, cause one will probably kill the other, at least that's wat happened to me.


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## VaporFlowers

I picked up a Rainbow shark. He's incredible! (I don't know how to sex them, so I'm not sure of the gender... we'll just call him a "he")

He's threatened my tetras a couple of times, but thought better of it when they threatened back. When I added 3 Corydoras, he and the tetras came out to stare at them as if asking "Is this food? Is it alive? I don't understand." He cracks me up, and he is comfortable enough that he's eating algae and swimming like a maniac. His color has darkened dramatically since the LFS, where he was a pale brown. Now he's kind of a gunmetal.

Best fish I've ever bought.


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## Rosko_22

They're pretty entertaining fish. 
I have no idea how, or even if it's possible to sex them or not. I always just call 'em "he" too.
Odds are if you're not feeding "him", "he'll" be grazing on some algae. :icon_bigg 
I don't know what your setup's like, but if you have an open top, or even partially open top I'd recommend you cover it. They seem to jump. I once had one jump out through the 1" X 6" gap between the hob filter and canopy!!!


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## general1107

I wouldn't worry about the rainbows or redtails. I've always had one in my tank. They act kind of like a peace keeper preventing aggression. They'll chase all the other fish but they won't hurt them. If you get another aggressive fish that nips fins chances are that the red tail will knock him in line and he won't go after any of the other fish or at least not as much since it has to worry about the redtail chasing it. Right now I have one redtail and one rainbow. The redtail used to chase the rainbow a lot but now the redtail doesn't seem to bother the other as much. The only thing is the redtails that I had seem to be really aggressive towards bala sharks. They'll pick on the bala 70% of the time and the rest of the fish 30% of the time. It really seems to stress the already sketchy balasharks out. Its cool though to see a full grown rainbow and a full grown bala shark swimming along side eachother niping and banging into eachother like two titans instead of chasing eachother like the other fish.


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## VaporFlowers

So far the rainbow shark has proved a more efficient algae eater than my bulldog plec! He seems to like pretty much anything to eat.

I do have a top. Even when I don't have "jumping fish", I'm majorly paranoid, and I hate evaporation.

I think the tank definitely belongs to him. He investigates every new arrival very carefully. I'm having second thoughts about introducing my dwarf-splittail-betta (that no one can really identify... it was a mistaken shipment at Petsmart). I'm afraid he might be too slow for the shark. I guess I can only try. He might be a mean little bastard right back. :icon_bigg


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## Rosko_22

> I'm afraid he might be too slow for the shark. I guess I can only try. He might be a mean little bastard right back.


That's an "iffy" situation, long-finned fish might not go so well with the shark. There's no way the betta will be faster than the shark, they can be pretty persistent even when they're slower than what they're chasing anyway. You never know though, it could work. Just keep a close eye on them.  

The only fish I've ever seen take on a rainbow shark was a tiger barb. He was about an inch long, the shark about three. The tiger barb beat up on the shark pretty badly, had to seperate them. Tiger barbs can be pretty nasty little fish, not even scared of sharks. lol :icon_bigg


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## balasharkfreak

*Sharks, gotta love'em!*

I love sharks especially balas as you would assume with my name. Ive had a bunch of different sharks in my past tanks. Rainbows seem to be pretty well behaved as are the balas. Of course, dont keep rainbows with red-tails.

I also had a black shark, that thing grew rather quick in a few months,. Got him at about 2" and he grew to about 5.5"-6" before I had to get rid of the tank. If I remember correctly, the black shark was aggresive with the red tailed shark.


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## Doritos Man 214

I have 2 Rainbow Sharks, and 1 Blue White fin Rainbow shark, and a Huge Algae Eater all in the same aquarium, a 20 Gallon tank, My Algae Eater is 2 1/2 years old, the rest of the Rainbow's are 1 1/2 year old I bought them from the same pet store in their same Tank so they have been together pretty much their entire Lives.

My sharks do have their own Territory and my Blue White Fin Rainbow is the most aggressive and biggest shark in the Tank but my Red Fins keep together and never fight my Blue White Fin just chases them out of his territory but never fights as well once there gone he leaves them alone. I need a bigger Aquarium there getting 2 big to have 3 sharks in a 20 Gallon. 

I Had a Bala Shark in there aswell last year but he didn't stand a chance against 3 rainbows LOL


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## newbe

*rainbow sharks*

We have 2 rainbow sharks and one keeps hidding in the plants only commingle out when the lights go out is that normal.


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## Avianwing

I am also thinking whether to add Rainbows or not. Earlier I had a bad experience, when one killed 3 of my 4 black mollies within 2 days and i had to rescue the 4th; but my tank was not very heavily planted.

Now i have Garra cambodgiensis which is quite an attractive fish with subtle coloring and I am thinking of getting rainbow, after this one crosses the rainbow bridge;which is not anytime soon. My only worry is whether he would nip/ kill the angels.

But I have seen a public display tank which has about 8 angels and and equal no. of rainbows.


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## kelle960

I know this is an old thread, but just throwing my experience in.
I have a red tailed shark in with Blood parrots, danios, green tiger barbs, snails, and a couple female bettas. I second the peacekeeper opinion! If the barbs or the bettas are picking on each other or someone else, the red tail literally swims between them to break them up. It's actually fun to watch. I've had all of these guys together for a few months, and no problems- When I first added the barbs he chased them a bit, but I believe the similarities in coloration led the shark to think they were rival sharks. Gets along with the big fish fine (He's actually the only one the bigger parrot tolerates in his space),, doesn't bother the little ones unless they swim by his side of the tank or are fighting. 
Fun fish. I have lots of plants/hiding spaces, which probably helps.


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## Aaronious

newbe said:


> *rainbow sharks*
> 
> We have 2 rainbow sharks and one keeps hidding in the plants only commingle out when the lights go out is that normal.


This thread got started again which is great because I have questions about my Rainbow. Like newbe I have a little albino that I ended up having to put into my 75 community earlier than I had planned. But it was happy, never seen anything chase it. it comes out every so often though I haven't seen it for about 5 days now. I seems to have not grown tho never looked unhealthy and am sorta thinking it's finally gone. never gone longer than 2 or 3 days with out seeing it yet. I really think it was just too small and timid and may end up starving.... Is this likely? We decided to get the albino and the only ones the LFS had were these little guys. May run down there tomorrow so I was thinking about finding a replacement. Should I wait? may this little guy make it and end up growing up? or do we think it's a goner at this point?


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