Rainbow shiners

One of my biggest rainbow shiners has had some lovely blue iridesence for a while now--it started with an optimistic "that might be a speck of blue if you turn your head and squint" and slowly developed until his whole back was covered in patches of bright blue sparkles. But the rest of them have suddenly turned blue almost overnight, like someone flipped a switch! The littlest one still hasn't joined the club yet, though. Also, do females get any blue patches? Because one of the shiners is looking extremely plump, but she's got blue scales too. Anyway, these aren't the greatest pictures in the world, but you can get the idea.





I got these guys as half inch fry, so I'm excited to see how they've matured!

Yea man, very nice. Congrats on raising them from 1/2" fry. They look like they have a nice home in your planted tank. I cant comment on the male female question. When you watch a spawning cluster they seem to vary a lot from individual to individual. One of America's finest. Enjoy and i wish you success on seeing fry grow to 1/2" this time.

I would like to hear how big the tank is, how many individuals you have and if there are any tankmates. Also longer term, if you have success seeing fry. Get another tank ready to move the fry to? And where the rainbows were from.

Edited by Casper Cox, 17 June 2009 - 09:03 PM.

In my experience adult females show some color, but nothing like the males. Yours are well into the electric freakout look.

Yea man, very nice. Congrats on raising them from 1/2" fry. They look like they have a nice home in your planted tank. I cant comment on the male female question. When you watch a spawning cluster they seem to vary a lot from individual to individual. One of America's finest. Enjoy and i wish you success on seeing fry grow to 1/2" this time.

I would like to hear how big the tank is, how many individuals you have and if there are any tankmates. Also longer term, if you have success seeing fry. Get another tank ready to move the fry to?

Right now I've only got 5 shiners, although I plan to have a larger school in the future. They're currently in a 20 gallon tank with a rainbow darter, 3 signifer rainbows, a few corys and a lone Danio choprai that I got for free from PetCo because they had no idea what it was, heh. It's a very odd mix of fish, but they're all doing great together. Eventually I want to set up a stream tank for the shiners and darter.

I'd love to breed the rainbow shiners in the future, but first I need more tank space to magically appear somewhere in my house. Although if any fry do pop up, I can stick them in the heavily planted 10 gallon with the white clouds--they certainly didn't eat their own fry, (went from 8 to roughly 25-30, oi) so the baby shiners would probably be safe.

I would like to hear how big the tank is, how many individuals you have and if there are any tankmates.

I'd love to see a full tank shot, it looks great. Looks like some celebe rainbows and danio choprae which seem like great tankmates if you go for non-natives . I must confess those celebe rainbows have tempted me more then once.

Ahh signifer rainbows, just did a quick photo search, wow now I'm feeling tempted again!

Edited by keepnatives, 17 June 2009 - 09:31 PM.

I'd love to see a full tank shot, it looks great. Looks like some celebe rainbows and danio choprae which seem like great tankmates if you go for non-natives . I must confess those celebe rainbows have tempted me more then once.

Ahh signifer rainbows, just did a quick photo search, wow now I'm feeling tempted again!

I've got a video of it up on Youtube. I'm not exactly an aquascaping guru, but I try:



You can see how the shiners aren't as colorful...it's kind of amazing how they've all suddenly gone neon blue! And yeah, both signifers and celebes are awesome fish, I've got all males and they're constantly displaying at each other. They got kind of washed out in the pics, their yellow is much more intense.

@fundulus: The fat shiner isn't as colorful as the others, although there are definite blue sparkles...so it's either a gravid female or a glutton, heh.

Oh, and the rainbow shiners are from Paul Sachs at Sachs Systems Aquaculture. He has awesome fish. =) I got my darter from him too.

Edited by Runan, 18 June 2009 - 12:13 AM.

I've got a video of it up on Youtube. I'm not exactly an aquascaping guru, but I try:

Looks great

Oh, and the rainbow shiners are from Paul Sachs at Sachs Systems Aquaculture. He has awesome fish. =) I got my darter from him too.

Thanks for the link, Sachs has alot of interesting fish and even more interesting are his plankton packs which seem like they'd be good fish food. Once I have my tank cycled and inhabited i am tempted to buy a pack of mixed plankton for a fish treat.