Hi Bryan,
I don't reallly keep rainbow fishes, but I thought only matured fishes have the hump on their back. I may be wrong.
If I recall correctly, there was a website dedicated to rainbowfishes. Let me see if I can dig it out.
Cheers,
I have 3 species of rainbows in my tank. One pair of boesemanis which I've had for almost 2 yrs are constantly sparing(I suppose they are males). However I notice some fish in other tanks and pictures have a very pronounced humpback(usually the large ones). I'm wondering why my rainbows don't? Does it come with age? Gender?
I recently added a pair of 'Salmon reds' but they lost color once they were introduced. They are now a dull metallic grey. Will the color come back? All are eating well(too well!) and active.
Hi Bryan,
I don't reallly keep rainbow fishes, but I thought only matured fishes have the hump on their back. I may be wrong.
If I recall correctly, there was a website dedicated to rainbowfishes. Let me see if I can dig it out.
Cheers,
I have dwarf cichlids in my tanks! Do you?
Thanks Benny!
My 2 yr old Boesemanis might be stunted then I hunted through a few aussie sites dedicated to rainbows but most were more enthusiatic about breeding and showcasing the mindboggling variations My main frustration now is sorting out the different species in the LFS as some mix them together and the colors only appear when you put them in a nice tank. At the LFS they all look the same- grey. and the sales people can't tell the difference.
Well... that's not a problem perculiar to rainbowfishes then! I do agree that most of the local shops don't have a good working knowledge of their livestocks. What a shame.Originally Posted by bryan
Cheers,
I have dwarf cichlids in my tanks! Do you?
Originally Posted by bryan
one thing you need to know about rainbowfishes, and I paraphrase what was recently said: "they hybridise with reckless abundance." not just within the genus but also intergeneric.
a lot of rainbowfish stock you see in the shops are already hybridise (intentionally or not) to some degree. hence your difficulty in identifying them, they look so intermediate. I just had three wonderfully red "M. trifasciata" but again they are almost certainly hybrids.
why I don't do garden hybrids and aquarium strains: natural species is a history of Nature, while hybrids are just the whims of Man.
hexazona · crumenatum · Galleria Botanica
intentionally hybridized or not. I think it's pretty much unavoidable due to the proximity of sub-species. According to some of the sites, different sub-speices in the wild are located in the same region but just different streams or rivers. eg. Same species of rainbows collected in 5 different locations in the same region in australia turn up with slightly different color variations.
So how original is your rainbow?
By the way I just found out Boesemanis originate from Papua New Guinea.
I believe the populations in the wild are beginning to speciate following the major climatic change 10,000 years ago. Hence when they are put back together in proximity they will still hybridise without hormonal "encouragements".
Anyway PNG is part of the Northern Australian biogeographical region. You ever heard of the term Sahulland? It was affected similarly to our own Sundaland during the deglaciation event.
why I don't do garden hybrids and aquarium strains: natural species is a history of Nature, while hybrids are just the whims of Man.
hexazona · crumenatum · Galleria Botanica
Dedicated website Benny mentioned...Originally Posted by benny
http://www.australianrainbowfish.com/
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homep...e/homepage.htm
http://members.optushome.com.au/chelmon/Contents.htm
Hi Hwchoy and Bryan,
I've been intrigued by the world of rainbows recently and have been trying to find them. Do you guys have any recommendations on where to go for a good range of rainbows?
Thanks,
Keith
Hello Keith,
Usually I get the less common ones from Qianhu and C328(I passed on an only pair of dodgy looking M.Parkinsoni at C328 recently). Not many shops want to sell them as they look awful in stock tanks.Common rainbows like bosemanis,incisus,neon, celebes,fucata, threadfin are found all over though. You might want to get a really large tank if you want to start collecting the different species.I still can't id some of my rainbows till today.Will post some pics for ID hopefully when I get my camera back, if ever.
I have a few of this rainbowfish, but do not know its name. Could someone please help to identify? Thanks.
Most of my rainbows will flare at similar size fish regardless of species,they will cross breed. I had the exact same problem in IDing the crossing rainbow, until I realised that most websites will not feature them as they discourage cross breeding when I found this(scroll down).
http://www.wetwebmedia.com/FWSubWebIndex/rainbows.htm
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