Hello,
I had posted in a previous post that I had setup my first aquarium with 3 bala's 1 red tail
Black Shark and a
Rainbow Shark. After reviews from this forum I moved the rainbow to another aquarium. Here is my question on behavior I had them all together for 2 days and almost never saw the rainbow he always was hiding and the RTBS hid in the same cave about 75% of the time. I assumed the Rainbow was hiding because the first day I put them all in there new home I saw the RTBS chasing the rainbow. Well now I have 3 bala's and the RTBS in one tank and the rainbow in a tank by him self. My bala's always active and out they seem happy, the only strange thing I see is while 90% of the time all 3 are together the other 10% the same bala goes to the other end of the tank and hangs out alone. The RTBS though is another story he still hides and I only see him every so often and when I do it’s only for a few minutes and then right back in the cave he goes; same with the Rainbow that’s alone. Is this normal activity for these two types of sharks? I know the rainbow and RTBS are very close relatives to each other. The 3 balas and RTBS are in a 55G tank and the rainbow is in a temporary 10G until the end of the month when he gets a 30G
Water test (I use aquarium pharmaceutical drop test, hard for me to see subtle color differences) all test are listed in ppm
Ammonia 0.25 – 0.50 * I can’t tell the difference between these colors
Ph 7.2 – 7.6 * this one is in the middle somewhere
Nitrite 0.0 – 0.25 this is not exactly 0 but not .25 either somewhere in the middle
Nitrate This one to me looks to be 10.0 but the two other people I had look said its between 5.0 and 10.0 I still say 10.0
Water Temp day 1 the temp was 78F where it had been for about 4 days, I kept hearing conflicting reports saying that was to hot for my RTBS so I lowered it to 76F
Sorry for the long post I am a newbie and just want healthy happy fish. I must say many people say the RTBS will be the center piece or start if you will of the tank, but I never see him I love my bala's
