• You are viewing the forum as a Guest, please login (you can use your Facebook, Twitter, Google or Microsoft account to login) or register using this link: Log in or Sign Up

Red tail shark tank

10cm is on the upper limit for these. A general max is between 10-12.5cm and that would have been wild caught and who knows what impact the hormones used to spawn them plays on thing.

Rainbow sharks are milder, if only by a bit, but get a little bigger.

Interestingly Marcel mentions the common advise that they can be a problem with plec and bottom feeders but mine has not shown any aggression to my clown loaches, ancistris or synos, so it's definitely down to the individual.
 
Oh I was expecting mine to grow 6"+ I heard its not uncommon for them to reach 8-9"..

On seriouslyfish it mentions how they get along with certain loach species and i read stories of them buddying up with clown loaches so that don't surprise me

Has anyone ever heard of them being bred without hormones?
 
RTBS certainly used to grow to over 6", but now they are mass-produced I think that may no longer be the case. It's happened with lots of species. 7" is quoted in lots of older books, and that used to be the size to aim for in fish shows.
As for behaviour, we spend hours researching how each species is supposed to act, but the pesky fish never seem to read anything, sometimes they don't do what the books and websites say at all. :)
 
Lol... That's a shame about the size, the big ones look stunning.

I've heard of an albino variety but never seen one. Are they not available in the UK? Or is there another reason?
 
Albino RTBS are not commonly available, though I have seen them in shops. Albino Rainbow Sharks are quite often available. That could be because they still have deep red fins, whereas the albino redtails I've seen had rather washed-out orangy tails and weren't very impressive.

Incidentally Rainbow Sharks is a strange name when they are black and red. They used to be called Red-Finned Black Sharks, then it was Ruby Sharks, both of those names make more sense to me. :)
 
I'd suggest that the large red tails are probably the longer lived ones. Apparently the average lifespan is up to 8 years but they can get more than double that if your lucky. If you consider that most fish grow quickly when young and then slow it does give an extra decade to grow, plus you have to consider how many generations nearer wild populations a 15+ year red tail could be.
I'll let you know how big my current 4" or so one has grown in another ten years.
 
Back
Top