Tiger Barbs (Puntius tetrazona) are very active and can be nippy and aggressive. The Western Rainbowfish tends to be a tad shy and skittish so they won't like Tiger Barbs as company

Although tank bred Tiger Barbs can be flexible in their water requirements, wild-caught specimens need soft water, and soft to medium is preferred even for tank-bred stock.

Five-Banded Barbs (Puntius pentazona) are soft water fish who need a pH below 7.

Ah right, I mentioned tiger because I was reading that they only start nipping when there isn't enough of them to establish a heirachy? But I'd rather take your word :).

Larger groups do tend to keep the nippiness to themselves, but with the nature of the Rainbows, it's the fast swimming, activity and chasing around that will cause more of a disturbance.

Both me and OH have agreed on rainbow fish, and golden barbs. Neither of us really like the bronchis splendens, and I don't think they would get on with our gravel too well. Is there an alternative or will we be looking at increasing the number of rainbow/barbs or understock the tank? Once again thank you.

Hi

Bottom dwelling fish for hard water are few and far between, but there is a very clear contender: Synodontis lucippinis - (Dwarf Lake Syno, False Cuckoo Catfish). They are from Lake Tanganyika and are recommended as a catfish for Rainbowfish set ups. They are generally peaceful and grow to just under 4 inches in length. They need to be kept in groups of four or more otherwise they can be very shy and reclusive and will need some rockwork to provide caves.

Other than that, there's really not much that's suitable and relatively easy to obtain so if they don't appeal to you I would look at increasing the numbers of the other species instead, or simply staying understocked.

Had a check at LFS's, rainbow fish and the barbs are easy enough to obtain, not having much luck with the bottom feeder.

If I was to not have a bottom feeder, what numbers could I increase the rainbow fish/barbs to? Could I have 2 barb species? Also - do the rainbow fish all intergrate with each other? Or will I need 6 of 1 for them to be happy?

Could invertibrates be an option? Cherry shrimp perhaps? Or would they be eaten?

If you're happy to order online, TriMar have S.lucippinis in at the moment.

If you skip the bottom feeder you can increase stock by the amount of fish omitted .... so if you were going to have four S.lucipinnis at 4 inches each you can replace them with 16 inches of another species.

Each Rainbow species needs a group of 6 of its own kind; a group of six mixed species won't work as they will not shoal together.

You could add a second group of Barbs as long as you check compatibility.

Shrimp would be eaten unfortunatly, but you could consider ornamental snails - Nerites for instance.

Any preference between boesemani and western? Im guessing boesemani would be the better suited for harder water?

Thinking 6 boesemani @ 27 inches
6 cherry barb @ 12 inches
4 Syno lucippinis @ 16 inches

= 55 inches.

Sound okay?

Either will do OK, but you're right that Boesmani Rainbows are a better bet in your water and should colour up well in those conditions. Be aware that they may not turn out exactly as you'd expect as there's been a fair bit of hybridisation over the years in tank bred stock - more so with Boesman's than others though most of the popular species have been adulterated to some degree.

That stock list sounds fine as long as they aren't all added at once and you keep an eye on how the filter is performing and on the levle nitrates reach between each stock addition.

I'm tempted to tell you to get less Synos because I'll be wanting some in a few weeks and I don't want Trimar to sell them all, but the reality is six should be OK and these little cats are much more active and confident in a decent sized group

Well, I won't be looking to get them for at least another few weeks! I'll let you have them ;).

Stocking has also been revised to;

6 Lake kutubu rainbow's
6 cherry barb
4 s. lucippinis

Will probably introduce the barbs first, then give a couple of weeks and then the rainbow fish and finally s. lucippinis to finish off with.

Got to buy me some nice plants too! (i'll let the OH deal with that one)

Thanks for all the help.