Small rainbowfish in standard community tanks?

[Omrit]

Recently I have been seeing some of the smaller rainbowfish species pop up for sale with an affordable price tag. I guess captive breeding has really kicked off for these guys as they have always cost a fortune at least in my area.

The species I am specifically referring to are : Threadfin rainbows(Iriatherina werneri ), red neon(Pseudomugil luminatus ), forktail blue eyes(Pseudomugil furcatus ), and Pseudomugil gertrudae .

The information I can find on them is all over the board with some saying they are fine for community tanks with anything a tetra could be kept with,while others say they are a specialty fish only suited for species tanks.

I am particularly interested in the threadfin or forktail blue eyes. If anyone has any opinions on any of these four species being kept with standard community fish (tetra,guppy,peaceful gourami ect) then I would love to hear.

 

[esoxlucius]

I've just started getting into rainbows. I have boosemani, dwarf neons and turquoise at the minute. The males can be absolutely stunning but the only costly downside to that is it's recommended to keep females too so that the males show their brightest colours. So the cost starts to spiral if you purchase the recommended amount of females to go with the males.

There's a rainbow expert on you tube who collects them from their natural habitat. He's got dozens of species specific tanks so the young are pure bred. If you mix them up in the same tank they can crossbreed and the resulting fish can be very poor and drab. In time mine will probably try to breed but the eggs will no doubt get gobbled up pretty quick, but if you know what you're doing they're meant to be pretty easy to breed.

I've got mine with dennisons, algae eaters and there's some clown loach in there too. No problems whatsoever. However, i'm still learning about these guys, others may add some more info for you.

 

[Omrit]

The species you mentioned are the regular rainbowfish ,and the dwarf neon is like them but smaller. The 4 species I mentioned are very different from them.

I will check out that youtube channel thanks!

 

[burntrubber]

Those 'nano' rainbow fish you mentioned don't really need special attention unless you intend to breed them. They'll go in the tank just fine with other similar sized fish. They'll look their best in a planted tank.

 

[Omrit]

Those 'nano' rainbow fish you mentioned don't really need special attention unless you intend to breed them. They'll go in the tank just fine with other similar sized fish. They'll look their best in a planted tank.

Thanks this is what I was looking for. I wanted to use them as an alternative to tetras in some of my tanks, but I did not want them to be the only species.