Rainbow shark
The rainbow shark, Epalzeorhynchos frenatum, is a popular freshwater, semiaggressive aquarium fish of the Cyprinidae family. It is also variously known as the ruby shark, red-fin shark, red-finned shark, rainbow sharkminnow, green fringelip labeo, whitefin shark and whitetail sharkminnow. Unlike true sharks, which belong to the Chondrichthyes ("cartilagenous fishes") lineage, the rainbow shark is an actinopterygiian ("ray-finned fish").
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| Rainbow shark |
image source: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gr%C3%BCner_Fransenlipper
Physical description
The rainbow shark has an elongated, dark-black and greenish body, or also can have a light-orange body with dark-red fins. It also occur in an albino variety, with a white body and bright-orange fins. The snout is pointed. The abdominal area is flat. The fins possess red to orange-red coloration. The linear area from the gill cover, the eye, and the mouth has a characteristic brief stripe. Compared to females, male rainbow sharks have thinner bodies with black lines along the tailfins. Males also have brighter coloration. They can grow up to 7 inches (15 cm) long with an average life span ranging from 4 to 6 years.
Distribution and habitat
Rainbow sharks are native to the basins of Mekong, Chao Phraya, Xe Bangfai and Maeklong in Thailand in Southeast Asia. They are also found in Indonesia. They live in water with sandy bottoms.
In the aquarium
Behavior
Rainbow sharks are tank-bottom and aquarium-surface cleaners. Being bottom- and mid-level dwellers, they consume leftover fishfood. They are known to be peaceful with their own kind in nature, but have been known to be aggressive with one another if kept together in a tank. Threat displays and fighting are likely to occur. This fighting behavior involves head-and-tail butting, and also biting.. A large rainbow shark will continuously chase a smaller one until the smaller one dies, especially in confined environments like aquaria. It may also increase the risk of the fish jumping out of its tank. This makes breeding difficult. Provision of hiding places and hollowed decors such as plants or artificial cave-like and tunnel-like aquatic ornaments minimize this typical behavior. Due to this behavioral characteristic among its own kind, rainbow sharks are not recommendable to the new aquarist. Keeping them with relatives, such as red-tailed sharks, bala sharks and black sharks should be avoided.
Tank requirements
An adult rainbow shark thrives in a 55-gallon (minimum 30-gal) tank with water at the neutral pH range (6.5 to 7.0 pH), with temperatures between 22 and 26 °C (72 and 79 °F), and water hardness maintained at 2 to 15 dH. They must have this much space, as they frequently swim around quickly and will terrorize other fish in any tank under this size.
Size
The rainbow shark usually reach a maximum length of 6 to 7 in, and rarely 8 or 9 in
Compatibility
Rainbow sharks are also compatible with barbs and rainbowfish, which are upper- and middle-tank dwellers. They can also live with danios, loaches, plecos, rasboras, and gouramis.
Diet
Rainbow sharks are not picky herbivorous and omnivorous eaters, but are primarily consumers of algae in the form of tablets, wafers and flakes. They also eat live food, such as insect larvae, tubifex worms, periphyton, crustaceans, phytoplankton, zooplankton and aquatic insects. Diet also include lettuce and spinach.They will also eat frozen bloodworms.
Breeding
No actual breed sequence has been documented. Although known to be
egg-layers, reproduction of rainbow sharks is difficult in an aquarium
setting.