2 red tailed sharks ok????

[ashtin49]

I have a 45 gallon. Today I got 6 neon tetris, 1 catfish, and 2 red tail sharks as the girl at the pet store said that would be fine. I had some problems with the alkiline and lost most of the new fish I bought last week(I felt SO bad), but had the water tested today and all is fine. The two mollies I bought last week are doing good.

Regarding the red tails, is two ok? I have a coral hideaway and one shark is taking it completely over. He won't let anyone and especially not the other red tail in. As I recall from when I was a kid and my parents had a tank the shark always likes a hiding place, hut, etc. Should I take one of the sharks back? Is this normal activity when there are two sharks? Are sharks aggressive, they were in the community fish tanks at the store, not even in the semi-aggresive?

Thanks for your help!

 

[smb]

No, 2 redtail sharks can't be together. They are very aggro to conspecifics and will mercilessly wear down the other and make life miserable. The girl at the pet store that said it would be fine is dead wrong. I would take one back asap.

They are community fish but not to other redtails and rainbow sharks. It works in the lfs because there are so many of them and no territories.

You'd need a much bigger tank than a 45g for it to work with only 2, imo. If you had 6 or 7 of them, there would still be a dominate but he would chase all of them and not wear 1 particular one down but they still wouldn't be as happy.

 

[Losi]

The girl at the shop obviously does not know a thing about fish. The first thing that I leant when I started is that two Red tailed sharke will not live together except in a very large tank.

I do have a red tail and a ruby\rainbow shark in my tank though. It is quite funny as when I change the decor about they bustly each other (they are both the same size) until one of them gives in and goes to the other end (usually after 10 mins). Once this is over they swim about together as if they were the best of friends!!

this will not happen with two red tails though!!!

 

[andyt_uk]

fairly new to fish keeping myself by my parents kept fish and i know they had a couple of sharks that were ok but only in a big (i.e. long) tank so they could keep plenty of distance between them.
i have also seen several sharks in a tank at LFS and they seemed fine together

 

[Morrgan]

fairly new to fish keeping myself by my parents kept fish and i know they had a couple of sharks that were ok but only in a big (i.e. long) tank so they could keep plenty of distance between them.
i have also seen several sharks in a tank at LFS and they seemed fine together

You can keep two sharks in one tank, but only if it's VERY big (I'm not sure of a minimum size, perhaps someone else can enlighten us on that point) and has enough hiding places.

Regarding several sharks together in the shop; while they're young, they can get along. The sharks don't start killing each other until the are big enough to get territorial. Still, this will happen sooner or later in a community tank.

 

[Alien Anna]

I'd be extremely surprised if it was the alkalinity of your tank that killed your fish, and if you're using pH Down to reduce it now, it's potentially causing more problems than it solves.

The most common reason for losing fish in a new tank is that the tank is not cycled. Please follow the link in my sig for further information.

Secondly, two red tailed sharks are not a good idea - you'll end up with one fat one.