Hi,
We've had a tank for about 7 mos now. I feel another tank coming on, as no one warned me that tropical fish were addictive, and our current fish are all extremely, er, "busy." I feel like Dr Ruth...
We've had 2 platties have babies, and at least 2 zebra danio "litters." Another danio is looking porky, and two neons are looking porky as well - based on the previous 2 months of fish excitement, I think they're full of eggs.
Tank: 29 gallons, freshwater, tropical, about 1 tablespoon of salt added with water change, all chemical ranges are in the "Safe" zone according to the test kit, water a bit on the hard side, live plants. Last purchase of fish was about the beginning of May, and that was adding the rainbow shark.
Home to:
4 neon tetras
3 bleeding heart tetras
4 adult zebra danios (and 3 babies that have made it this far - moved to breeder box)
4 adult orange platties (and 1 baby, also in the breeder box)
1 upside down catfish
2 plecos
unfortunately a bunch of snails that hitched a ride on the plants
and the topic of my question, a rainbow shark (Epalzeorhynchos frenatus), named Ray Sharkey.
Everyone gets along happily, although I suspect Ray ate some of the zebra babies that snuck out from the other side of the partition.
Ray is becoming increasingly chubby in the last little while. We thought at first that he was just full of zebra babies. Now we suspect that Ray is a she. All I can find on the internet is that rainbows are hard to breed, no info on breeding them in captivity, don't try this at home, etc. Ray came from a tank with at least 2 dozen other rainbow sharks.
Does anyone know how to tell if Ray is "Ray-ette"? Live bear or lay eggs? Internal fertilization? If they "store" sperm like the platties can? I have a 5-gallon tank I can use since Ray is too big for the breeder boxes I have, or I can put Ray on the other side of the partition in the 29-gal (where the zebras laid their eggs last time).
TIA for any info on Ray.
We've had a tank for about 7 mos now. I feel another tank coming on, as no one warned me that tropical fish were addictive, and our current fish are all extremely, er, "busy." I feel like Dr Ruth...
We've had 2 platties have babies, and at least 2 zebra danio "litters." Another danio is looking porky, and two neons are looking porky as well - based on the previous 2 months of fish excitement, I think they're full of eggs.
Tank: 29 gallons, freshwater, tropical, about 1 tablespoon of salt added with water change, all chemical ranges are in the "Safe" zone according to the test kit, water a bit on the hard side, live plants. Last purchase of fish was about the beginning of May, and that was adding the rainbow shark.
Home to:
4 neon tetras
3 bleeding heart tetras
4 adult zebra danios (and 3 babies that have made it this far - moved to breeder box)
4 adult orange platties (and 1 baby, also in the breeder box)
1 upside down catfish
2 plecos
unfortunately a bunch of snails that hitched a ride on the plants
and the topic of my question, a rainbow shark (Epalzeorhynchos frenatus), named Ray Sharkey.
Everyone gets along happily, although I suspect Ray ate some of the zebra babies that snuck out from the other side of the partition.
Ray is becoming increasingly chubby in the last little while. We thought at first that he was just full of zebra babies. Now we suspect that Ray is a she. All I can find on the internet is that rainbows are hard to breed, no info on breeding them in captivity, don't try this at home, etc. Ray came from a tank with at least 2 dozen other rainbow sharks.
Does anyone know how to tell if Ray is "Ray-ette"? Live bear or lay eggs? Internal fertilization? If they "store" sperm like the platties can? I have a 5-gallon tank I can use since Ray is too big for the breeder boxes I have, or I can put Ray on the other side of the partition in the 29-gal (where the zebras laid their eggs last time).
TIA for any info on Ray.
