Melanotaenia Praecox

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mattlee

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do these fish only grow to about 2 inches? been ooking them up and would appreciate anybodys experience with them. :good:

im after a shoaling fish thats not too big that will live with my angels, polkadot loaches, false sae, corys.

do i need 2:1 female to male ratio? imlookng at getting about 9 in total, my tank pH is 7.4, 240L, nitrate 20 ish

any advice or experience is appreciated :good:
 
my oldest M. praecox male i've had for 13 months, i'd say he's about 18 months old by now, and he's about 2" only. when they get to that size they start to grow round rather than longer.
it's always recommended to keep more females than males, but it's a rule i've never adhered to with any of my rainbows and i've never had a problem. luckily female praecox is almost as pretty as the males...
if i was getting 9 of them i would get 4 males and 5 females, it's good and it'll look beautiful.

make sure you do weekly water changes with the rainbows though, because more than nitrates they also are sensitive to the buildup of TDS and the single best way to keep these guys healthy is with large weekly water changes :good:

i also have my rainbows with angelfish and they dont bother each other.
 
I have a few praecox in with my larger bows and my lone angelfish. I have no problems with bullying at all, so it's possible. The angel pretty much ignores the rainbows.
 
I've had a shoal of 9 mostly males (I did have 2 males 3 females then adopted 4 more - all males and gave one away) and they were fine - really coloured up showing off to the females. I've had a couple die off for no apparent reason - no real bullying, water no problem, just one of those things I guess - and one that was deformed (still lived 2yrs though!). They do only get to 2" I've had mine 2 years now and they are peaceful active and very greedy.
 
i have had mine for about 18 month's now and the are about 2inches, i found no problem with them and my very large angel.They look really cool when they shoal together their colour's are lovely, I've not had any problem's with male to female ratio but female's are just has nice looking as male's they just not as big.
 
thanks for all your replys :good:
i went to lfs today to look at them again in the flesh and they didnt look at nicely coloured as last time..... are these rainbows like most of the others they will colour up better when happy in my tank?
they looked really silver not blue and the red was really dull on them.......... they also had only 2 females that were obvious the rest were males! :unsure:
 
of course the fish are going to look dull in the store. they arent taken care of in any way that they should. once you put them in a clean tank with plants and good food and not overstocked, they'll color up nicely :good:
 
Went to get some today and they only had males and 2 females amongst them, so i didnt bother getting any! gutted :angry:
 
went to a different lfs today and got 5 females and 4 males, all doing well so far :good: they look stunning too
 

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