What's Compatible With Paradise Fish?

[cuticom]

Yah two inch body, he's like three inch with fins as well.

Hehe he's great fun, yesterday somehow a massive blowfly got stuck in his tank and drowned. It was the same size as his head. he ate the legs and wings off of the poor thing before I got to it and removed it.

Hmm I think my Mum's lizards are gonna have to share their crickets when he gets older.

Hey do paradise fish like snails? or just insects?

 

[nmonks]

Are you talking about Gymnocorymbus ternetzi when you say black skirt tetra? Those are the absolute definition of a fin-nipping fish (at least when kept in the twos and threes most people seem to keep them in). Certainly cannot be kept with paradise fish. The poor paradise fish will be nipped constantly.

Assuming you're keeping your paradise fish in a subtropical tank, I'd recommend choosing subtropical barbs and danios, if you have the space. Obviously choose non-nippy species, and try and keep them in reasonable numbers. This will ensure these schooling fish interact with one another rather than the paradise fish, and a male paradise fish will be hard-pressed to harass a whole school of barbs whereas he could easily pick on one or two specimens. Among my favourite small subtropical fish are:

Rosy barb, Barbus conchonius (a beautiful species, but quite big when mature)
Green barb, Barbus semifasciolatus (hardy, lively, and easy to keep)
Mosquitofish, Gambusia affinis holbrooki (possibly too aggressive for your tank)
Variatus platy, Xiphophorus variatus (difficult to find pure-breds, but they are out there)
Hong Kong plec, Gastromyzon punctulatus (not a plec, and not from Hong Kong)
Dragon goby, Rhinogobius duospilus (needs lots of sand and burrows to be safe and happy)

Cheers,

Neale

A larger non aggressive/non nippy type tetra might be good long term.. like black skirts?

 

[vancouver]

Have you had problems with black skirts nipping before?

I guess in a small tank they might.. I don't know if I knew the tank size before I recommended them. I've never had problems with them, but I've never kept them in small groups.. I've always had 10 or more.

 

[sylvia]

Just a note with the 'hong kong plec' - these fish need fast-flowing water which a paradisefish won't appreciate.

 

[vancouver]

Just thought I'd post that my white cloud disappeared.. I think my paradise got it..

So white clouds might not be the best option

 

[pica_nuttalli]

i had a large male paradise fish, once upon a time. due to some tank shuffling, i once tried housing him in a 10g with 2 khuli loaches and 2 cory cats. total diaster. from the moment i introduced him to the tank, he started dive-bombing the cories and chasing the khulis into the plants. very territorial. plenty of other people have had horrible experiences when trying to house paradise fish in small communities, so i'd really recommend keeping him as an individual.

i always find it helpful to think of paradise fish as being just like exceptionally large bettas. they're grumpy, violent, and territorial. they're also slow and unlikely to attack outside of their territory, which in my experience is about 15g in size. thus, they are better off kept either alone in a smaller tank or with non-aggressive fish in a pretty large tank. and try not to keep 2 paradise fish at once, since the adults exhibit a lot of interspecies aggression (think bettas again).

 

[Princess Paradise]

hey, my paradise fish will occationally nip at a snail so yours might eat one. I have a fully grown paradise fish in a ten gallon tank with 2 african dwarf frogs and an apple snail (who he doesn't bother with). The frogs will bite the fish and kick the snail in the face with a hind leg. If you want feeding tips for your paradise fish, try blood worms or flakes will do.



PARA ....."Swimming is too much like...Bathing."

 

[pica_nuttalli]

to add to that list, spirulina is much appreciated by paradise fish and really does wonders with their color

 

[vancouver]

Mine will eat anything.. I give it spirulina pellets, cichlid pellets, and freeze dried bloodworms.

 

[Avinitlarge]

We had 3 of them, They were REALLY nasty and killed a few of our fish, I ended up giving them to a friend who put them i a tank with green terrors, The paradise fish square up to them but soon back down