Almost a boring subject i know. But i have 5 IT and 2 silver dats in a 9x4x2 tank with 5 rays and 2 birchirs. Also have a shoal of 7 tinfoil. The dats hardly ever colour up. Read all sorts of posts including dats getting stable if kept alone. I managed to catch one of the dats and put him in the quarantine end of the sump. He turned stable within a day. Put him back in the main tank and guess what, he now not stable. Could the tinfoil be stopping the dats from going stable. Only time the dats get a bit of colour is when the day time lights go out and the blue moon light comes on. I would like to keep more than one dat and like the tinfoil for clean up purposes. Don't really want to drop to just one dat only to find out it does not go stable due to some other reason. The dats range from 2" to 6" in size and same for the tin foil barbs.
Any thoughts.
The thing is IT don't seam to like tank lights
The silvers are a brackish water fish and are a bit more aggressive
The tinfoils have nothing to do with it
If you have bogwood or hiding places this also seams to make them a bit more unstable
It can take them years to go stable or they may never colour up
I have had IT that have never been stable then I have sold them and they have stayed stable 24/7 in the new tank
I do honestly think they do better on there own
They will tolerate others but given the chance they would be a solo fish
My ST had been kept in groups for over 6 years with no big issues he wouldn't show any interest in other when they was small but as soon as they hit 14-16" he would beat them up bad
I sold off all my others and just kept the big boy on his own
Then 6 months later I had to put a friends 10" IT in after just 15 mins he had beat it up bad
I don't think I could ever put another one in now
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