Fish Aggression

[simplyfish]

Friend of mine had a small picture tank, about 4-5G, in it were a handfull of small mixed Tetras and a Bala Shark. I convinced him that a Betta would be a much better option than the Shark in there, as the shark needs much more room to swim.

Only problem is that I am now housing the Bala for him, only short term as my 10G is not big enough for him either but should have a 30G cycled and ready in the next few months, BUT I have a red fin shark in there at the moment and have been told they can be aggressive to other similar sharks.

Are these sufficiently different to house together, I know the RTS will swim predominantly bottom and Bala anywhere. They seem reasonably happy together at moment, but only been in about an hour. How long do fish tend to take before trying to establish dominance / bullying other fish.

LFS owner said should be OK, a rainbow would be a problem but the Bala should be OK. He is also tiny at moment (about 50% larger than Danio) so size of tank will be fine in short term. Just wonderingg about other peoples experiences with aggresive fish / territorial disputes or if anyone has mixed these sharks before?

Thanks

David

 

[simplyfish]

I also picked up an extra couple of Danios from him, they were the survivors from his cycling but the teo of them were terrorising his tetras...

 

[TabMorte]

THe 30G won't last them long either. The bala's grow to be a foot long (and red tails get big too!). But for the time being anything is better then a 5G! Tha poor Bala.

THat said I would not add anything else to your 10G until you have the 30G set up. And I would Highly recommend water changes at least twice a week with that bio load.

You can keep down aggression by making sure there's plenty of hiding places for the fishes on all levels of the tank and keep some tall plants (real or fake) as line of sight breaks.

 

[simplyfish]

Thanks for that, trying to work out how big a tank I can squeeze in, saw some mature Balas today and they looked beautiful in the shop in a great big tank with loads of space to swim in, I already know that I will end up giving them away in a year or two to a good home.

There are some good root networks from a piece of bogwood, a cave and some plants for hiding so environment is good for now.

So if they haven't been aggressive to each other pretty much straight away, do you think they will be ok together for a while?