Red Tailed Sharks

[mike455555]

few questions about them...

would a 3f tank be big enough for one? (120L)
would one mix with a female betta?
do they eat plants?

any other advice? on there need's?

its a community tank with 8 neon tetra, 10 amano shrimp, 4 otocinculs, 2 plattys and 1 female betta

 

[soybean]

Tank is too small.

 

[mike455555]

ohh right fair enough.. what size do they need / how big do they grow then? if i were to get a bigger tank ;p

 

[soybean]

They grow large and can be very territorial and potentially aggressive without enough room. I'd say 55 gallon, over 200 litres, as a minimum. Personally I'd go more like 300l.

 

[mike455555]

ohh right thanks =] i want a bigger tank =D ... just need to persuade my rents ;p ... what about my other questions ... do they eat plants ? and do they have other needs besides space

 

[soybean]

If you do a search of the forum for Red Tailed Black Shark, RTBS etc, lots of posts come up about keeping them. You'll probably read everything you need to know if you work your way through them.

What I would say is if you want to keep one with anything else, I would go larger than 55g. They're very fast and require a lot of room.

Myself I think they're more hassle to keep than they're really worth, but someone has to like them.

 

[mike455555]

ok thanks =]

 

[TropicalJuwel]

As soybean said 300l is a minimum really otherwise you find rtbs chasing tank mates all the time as there in what they feel their space, they dont get huge at roughly 12 cm but are fast swimmers, only 1 per tank for aggression reasons. As feeding goes dont really think much is off the menu, mine loves tubifex, cucumber, peas and dried foods i use, may graze on algae during day on plants but not the amount of algae that makes a difference to the tank and mine does'nt eat the plants so would have to say it does'nt. Fantastic looking fish but only in the right tank as other comments have said or found out the hard way otherwise they will stress you as much as it's poor tank mates.

 

[Hunterprey]

Might not be a good idea mixing them with Otos n Betta IME. Mine get on fine with them when he was a good 1 1/2 inch, but that changed as he got bigger. Theyre pretty fast growers too. Mine was 1 1/2 inch when I got him and is 5 inches now after 2 years.