Rainbow Aggression

[Willow]

Hi,

Would appreciate if some1 could help with a dilema i seem to be having atm in my aquarium. My aquarium is filled with aust rainbows, some small tetras and a few barbs with their sizes ranging from 1.5 to bout 7cm. Everything has been fine for a few months until about 3 weeks ago with many of the smaller tetras just disappearing. Then some of my medium sized rainbows we losing eyes. The aquarium shop said it was popeye even though my water quality was quite good. So after treating them with a broad spectum the injuries and deaths still continued.

During the day the fish were fine but every morning another 1-3 fish started just dying with no markings on them or were missing 1 or both eyes. I then got rid of my tiger barbs thinking they were the cause yesterday. But alas, this morning my tank has been severely attacked overnight with several fish dying, missing eyes or major damage to their eyes.

I was under the impression that rainbows weren't aggressive but somehow I feel this is not the case. I have now removed the larger species of rainbows from my tanks and will see what tomorrow brings.

Has anyone else had any problems similar to this and could give some advice :-)

[wombat1100]

I had similar problems with my rainbows, i think the culprit was a Salmon red rainbow male , I lost lots of fish b4 he died and the killing spree stopped!

[Willow]

Yeah thanks for that. I atm can't get any salmon reds so it's not that. I was losing a lot so i pulled out my checkered n kangaroo creek species which were the largest rainbows in the tank yest and today i seem to have no more injuries or deaths. But its only day 1 so ill see what the next few days show. It frustrates me because its a 6ft tank heavily planted so catching fish was no picnic lol. Unfortunately now that i've pulled out the largest rainbows the rainbows left in the tank are going through a new pecking order so i hope not much carnage happens from that or stresses out my injured fish. Ahhhh the joys of owning fish hey lol. Cheers :-)

[wombat1100]

Time will tell if they were the problem, I would love to see some pics of your tank if you have any

[Willow]

Ok.....thanks for replying. I have been quiet for a few days because i wanted to see if some advice given to me by a seasoned rainbow breeder paid off. The situation in my tank only began about 3 weeks ago when I put in a few more aquired rainbows.

The advice given was to rid my tank of the Goyder River species which incidentely I only introduced to my tank when all the killings and maming started happening. It is now 3 days since the juvenile Goyder River Rainbows have been removed and not one fish has died or lost an eye.

Im not saying Goyder River Rainbows can't be placed in a rainbow community but i can say they didn't work out positively in my tank. Maybe if i had a few more females of the same species...the outcome may have been different. But in my case it wasn't.

With a heavily planted aquarium and many species of rainbows just beginning to colour up, it is a shame 3 juvenile rainbows have wreaked such havoc. I still like the Goyder River rainbows and was wondering if any out there have successfuly kept this species with others and how they do it????

I would send in a photo but being new to this forum I have no idea how to lol.


Oh ps....interestengly i was also told you couldnt keep boesemi and salmon red together either without losing the reds??? Any1 else come across this????

Cheers Willow :-)