# Gertrudae Rainbowfish



## Docock (Aug 5, 2015)

I would love to get a school of 6 or 8 of these for my 29 gallon community aquarium. Can anyone tell me about their experience with these fish? 

I also see beautiful ones with nice big adipose and anal fins, and then others that hardly have them. Some are even blue, so basically I am asking. Which species produce what look, and what is the most common? 

Thanks so much!


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## Betta132 (Nov 29, 2012)

There are quite a few different strains of them, and each strain looks different. Males typically have large fins, females have smaller fins. The blue ones with huge fins are 'Blue Eye' gertrudae rainbows, a specific strain, and they tend to run a bit more on the expensive side due to being more desirable. 
They're feisty, and you should probably have at least two females per male. The males are persistent. If you have more than one male, they'll engage in territorial 'fights' that are really just visual sparring- which is quite a fun thing to watch, as it causes them to show off their best colors and finnage. 

What else do you have in the tank?


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## Docock (Aug 5, 2015)

Awesome thank you so much for that info! 

I have not actually started stocking my tank yet. It is heavily planted and has been cycling for almost 2 months and the BB is built up.

My current plan for stocking is:

12 Blue Neon Rasbora 
6 Gertrudae Rainbowfish
4 lyretail killifish australe or (2 killifish/ 2 peacock gobies) 
1 Royal farlowella catfish

AqAdvisor

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Would this work out?


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## Seattle_Aquarist (Jun 15, 2008)

Docock said:


> I would love to get a school of 6 or 8 of these for my 29 gallon community aquarium. Can anyone tell me about their experience with these fish?
> 
> I also see beautiful ones with nice big adipose and anal fins, and then others that hardly have them. Some are even blue, so basically I am asking. Which species produce what look, and what is the most common?
> 
> Thanks so much!


Hi Docock,

Gertrudae Rainbowfish are an excellent choice for a planted tank. They are typically small in size (1"-2") and school together nicely in my tank. They typically stay in the upper 1/3 of my tank and are usually found near the surface. I keep Pseudomugil gertrudae "Aru II" (Gary Lange's strain) in a tank with Melanotaenia boesemani "Lake Aytinjo" (also rainbowfish / Gary Lange's strain), German Blue Rams, and Corydoras sterbai. They eat dry flake food, freeze dried tubifex worms, and frozen bloodworms; I occasionally feed them live white worms also. Pseudomugil gertrudae "Aru IV" are also a nice species.

Pseudomugil gertrudae "Aru II" (Gary Lange's strain)









Pseudomugil gertrudae "Aru II" (Gary Lange's strain)









Pseudomugil gertrudae "Aru II" (Gary Lange's strain)


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## WaterLife (Jul 1, 2015)

Betta132 said:


> The blue ones with huge fins are 'Blue Eye' gertrudae rainbows, a specific strain, and they tend to run a bit more on the expensive side due to being more desirable.


Not sure what is meant right here.

The genus of Pseudomugils are called "Blue Eyes", so multiple species do have the blue eyes. Psuedomugil doesn't mean blue eyes, but to the best of my knowledge almost all Pseudomugils have blue eyes. 

Most species can have elongated rays on their fins, it all comes down to the individual specimens. There are strains (locality) that more often or less often have these elongated fin traits (even ones with different color highlights on their pectoral tips and elongated fins). One area, it might be more common to have elongated fins, but still there are some in that area that don't have the more attractive elongated rays. It just varies from individual specimen to specimen.

As for Gertrudae rainbows, the ones with full yellow bodies with white or sometimes yellow fins are generally referred to as ARU IV (4) and are the most commonly kept and usually cheapest ($4-8).

Gertrudaes with mainly white bodies (some have yellow bellies) with white fins (some can have yellow, all depends on locality) are usually called ARU II (2) and are one of the more desired strains, harder to find available, but still don't cost much more from the places I've seen ($7-10).

ARU 2 can look a little better, but I've had ARU 4 with nicer elongated rays, but out of all the Pseudomugils (Furcatus, Conniae, Signifer, Mellis, Tennellus, Ivanstoffi Deky creek and Kopi River, even threadfins, Celebes and a rare yellow morph of Paskai) I have kept so far, my favorite are P. Paskai/Iriani Red. Nice red body and fins with a blue iridescent stripe on the top (like cardinal tetras). Generally $7-11 per fish. I like P. Cyanodorsalis, but haven't got my hands on any yet, will very soon.

Although real Pseudomugil enthusiast would want to go by specific locations where the fish was collected as the fish could possibly be a entirely different species even though they look the same.
There is a mix up out there for some reason with some calling a actual ARU 2, a ARU 4 and vice versa, so there is confusion out there. The ARU numbers are just different collection points to, but there are differences between the fish in the different locations.

Also I have noticed, the fish CAN grow elongated rays. I bought a group of Gerts online and they came in with no elongated rays and after some time, some males did now have elongated rays, doesn't always happen with all males, but some did grow elongated rays as they got older. And these were fairly aged males, not too young.
So pretty much, if you want the nice looking ones with elongated fins, only buy those nice ones, not all of them have or will grow the extended rays.

All of the Pseudomugil species are very peaceful small fish (1.5"). Threadfins are cool looking as well, very similar-ish, bit odder looking fish and a little bigger, but act the same.

I just read your stocking list, from personal experience, I would not get Peacock Gudgeons/gobies, mine were fine for the first month, then after that I noticed my Corydoras and Pseudomugil's fins were tore up.

I also was interested in Killiefish as they look great, but I had been advised that they are kind of bullies and wouldn't be so peaceful in a community tank, but I have seen it done, I guess it just depends on which species you get.

Blue Neons Rasboras I don't have experience with, but I think they would be fine with Gerts. As well as the Farlowella.
One word of advice though, is you might want to start off adding fish slowly and not add all those fish at once. Maybe add half that list at a weeks time. Add the 12 blue neons, then next week add the 6 gerts and farowella, etc. It could be done all at once, but might take a more advanced fish keeper to do (IE, you might have some BB, but have you colonized enough for that amount of fish all at once? depends on amount of ammonia was being added during cycling). Just looking out for you as it would be best to have the experience in fish keeping go smoothly rather than buy a bunch of fish and then half or more die.

Bump:


Seattle_Aquarist said:


> I keep Pseudomugil gertrudae "Aru II" (Gary Lange's strain) in a tank with Melanotaenia boesemani "Lake Aytinjo" (also rainbowfish / Gary Lange's strain), German Blue Rams, and Corydoras sterbai


Hey Roy,

Do you know any way I can get ahold of Gary Lange? Email?
I've watched Cory's video (from Aquarium Co-op, also part of GSAS) when he showed Gary Lange's fish room and saw some other Pseudomugil rainbows I haven't seen available before. They looked similar to Gertrudaes, perhaps a different location/strain of Gerts, but still looked different and interesting enough that I want to see/learn and even buy some from Gary Lange. I am going to be buying P. Cyanodorsalis from a seller that says they acquired a batch from Gary himself at a auction/lecture last year.


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## Docock (Aug 5, 2015)

Wow thank you all for so much advice, this is so helpful! 

I will make sure to add my fish slowly and only a species at a time. I will also stay away from the peacocks, but I am still going to try and find out more about the killifish, and see if they would work. 

Seattle_Aquarist, the rams do not bother the gerts at all? 

P. Paskai/Iriani Red are incredible! Does anyone know specifically of any blue strains? 

Thank you so much.


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## JustJen (Jun 20, 2011)

I'm sure it's one of those things that just depends on the individual fish, but I have two peacock gudgeons in my 33 long, and I've had zero issues with aggression or fins getting nipped or anything like that - even after they spawned. Other inhabitants of the tank are gertrudes (Aru IV - favorite fish by far), ember tetras, pygmpy cories, sparkling gouramis, otos, and amanos.


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## Docock (Aug 5, 2015)

Yea, I think so too JustJen. I have heard so many mixed reviews of peacocks. 

Do the Aru IV have some blue coloration? I am so excited to get some!


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## WaterLife (Jul 1, 2015)

Rams don't mess with the Gerts at all really, so they are compatible.

If you google Peacock gudgeons and gertrudae rainbows, a couple other reports come up saying the same fin nip damage as I have experienced keeping the two together. But I have heard others have had no problems keeping the two species together. My case had no reason for extra aggression (plenty of room, heavily planted with broken visual barriers/territories, had a trio which I hear is fine) so no idea really why I had issues while others' haven't, maybe it was just one peacock that did all that damage (had a trio and nipping would only take place at night when the other fish were less active/sleeping).

Before buying the peacocks I did research them and also found good and bad reports of them, I decided to give them a try and if they did cause problems, I would just rehome them, and turns out they did fin nip, even the guy I know that manages the fish department of a LFS warned me they can be fin nippy. So I guess it's hit or miss, you could try them out for yourself and see how it goes.

There is no blue body/fin Pseudomugil that I know of besides P. Paskai/Iriani having the blue iridescent stripe. P. Cyanodorsalis has a bit thicker blue stripe. Other than those two Pseudomugils, there are Melanotaenia Praecox (Dwarf Neon Rainbowfish), they have a blue shimmering body, get 2-2.5", nice colors, more active swimmers though so appreciate more room, but a 29 gallon should be fine for a small group, they don't have elongated fins though and don't really display fins the same.
A fish that looks similar in coloration to M. Praecox, are Daisy's Ricefish (Oryzias Woworae). They stay small as Gerts and are just as peaceful, and even hang out with Gerts. Little more spunky with male to female than Pseudos. Don't have the elongated fins, but do have colored inverted pectoral tips like Gerts can have. They have the body sheen body and same different coloration of male and female as M. Praecox. Very easy to breed.

Also there are Celebes rainbowfish that get the blue iridescent stripe as well on their lateral line, but they do get a bit larger 3" so might not be the best choice for that size tank.

Pictures you might see of blue Gerts are just lighting tricks, there are no blue body coloration (besides the iridescent stripes and reflecting eyes) in Pseudomugils I've seen. Maybe if you have the right kind of lighting on them you can get them to reflect some blue, but they themselves, are not blue colored. There are larger rainbows that get blue though.


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