Rainbow shark popularly known as the red fin shark is a small fish that has it’s origin from Asia. They are very colorful and beautiful when placed in a home aquarium, that’s why many aquarists love keeping them. Although they are little bit hard to keep, unless you are experienced or have studied about them very well. They’re very territorial and semi aggressive and can only grow up to 6 inches in size. So if you are interested to know how many of them that could be kept in a 55 gallon aquarium and other tank size, then this article is for you.
How many rainbow sharks should be kept in a 55 gallon tank? Rainbow shark is not a schooling fish and doesn’t tolerate tank mates, including other rainbow sharks. So a rainbow shark should be alone in a 55 gallon tank.
One unique thing about this fish is, they are although small for their size and semi aggressive like many other fish, but they are very territorial to the extent that they even don’t tolerate their own kind too.
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So if you happen to keep 2 or more of this fish in a small tank like the 55 gallon, what will happen is that they will all fight among themselves, nipping at each other’s tails and fins etc.
By so doing, they will hurt themselves or even make it possible to easily get diseases or infections as the case maybe.
Naturally, this type of fish needs enough space to swim about.
Although they are small for their size, but the average tank size each rainbow shark could live in comfortably is a 50 gallon tank.
So a 55 gallon tank cannot contain up to 2 or more rainbow Sharks, as they will be very territorial and will end up killing themselves.
So if you’re planning to get a 50 or 55 gallon or any tank that is less than 120 gallon plus, then have it in mind that you can only keep one of this fish in it.
Although rainbow shark could have have fish tank mates, but they shouldn’t be bottom dwellers.
This is because rainbow sharks don’t go well with other bottom dwelling animals, especially fish.
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So for peace to reign, their tank mates should be non bottom dwellers and there should be many hiding places, substrates and plants, as it keep this shark busy sometimes.
How Many Rainbow Sharks Should Be In A 10 Gallon Tank?
If you have only a 10 gallon tank, or you could only afford it and judging by how small rainbow sharks are, you may be wondering if such a tank could contain this fish and how many it should be able to contain.
How many Rainbow sharks should be in a 10 gallon tank? A 10 gallon tank is too small to contain a rainbow shark. A rainbow shark should not be kept in a 10 gallon tank, unless in a 50 gallon tank and above.
Although they could only grow up to 6 inches when fully matured, but they require so much tank space per fish.
This is one of the reasons why this type of fish is somewhat costly to keep, because you need to get them a very big tank, and your so called big tank might end up not being able to contain up to 3 of them because of their aggression and territorial behavior.
So if you are thinking of somehow keeping a rainbow shark, even to talk of more than one in a 10 gallon tank, then you will need to kill that thought because it won’t just happen!.
The fact is, if you try to keep this fish in a small tank like the 10 gallon, the fish won’t be healthy, and will die, simply because it needs enough space to swim about and be healthy.
So a 10 gallon cannot contain a rainbow shark, even to talk of having more than one in it.
How Many Rainbow Sharks In A 20 Gallon Tank?
Maybe you have a 20 or 30 gallon tank and you are interested in Rainbow sharks and so, you want to find out how many of them you could be able to house in this type of tank.
How many rainbow sharks should be in a 20 or 30 gallon tank? A 20 or even 30 gallon tank is too small to comfortably house a rainbow shark. A rainbow shark could only be comfortable in a bigger tank like the 50 gallon tank or more.
Now you know that your 20 or 30 gallon tank is way too small to contain a rainbow shark, even to talk of keeping multiple of them in such type of tank.
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Although small in size, but are territorial, aggressive and space occupiers.
So they don’t need to be kept in a small tank, and trying to do such will only end up making them unhealthy and far more aggressive than they were before and possibly killing themselves or any tank mate they might have etc.
So giving them enough space and keeping them alone helps to make them comfortable and curb their aggressive and territorial nature a bit.
How Many Rainbow Sharks Can I Have?
As I have explained many times above that Rainbow shark does not tolerate each other and could hardly live with other too, you might begin to wonder if you could be able to keep some of them, and how many could be okay for you to keep.
How many rainbow sharks can I have? You can have as much of rainbow sharks as you want, but for the fact you keep them in a very huge tank or you keep them in separate tanks that are up to 50 gallon each.
Although being aggressive and territorial, what they really need is enough space, I mean a very large or huge space and hiding places like caves, pipes, substrates and plants.
Provide such for them and they will be busy with it and mind their individual territories, thereby making it possible for a sustainable peace in the tank.
Once they have enough space, each of them will have to mind it’s territory and keep to it.
So with a very large tank and with hiding places in the tank, you can keep as many as you want, but if you ask me, keeping only 6-9 and especially more female in a 450-500 gallon tank or maybe with other suitable tank mates is cool.
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So you can keep as many rainbow sharks as you want, for the fact they have enough space to claim and swim about.
And a rainbow shark needs a tank size or space of 50 gallon to thrive.
Conclusion
Like I always say ‘our pets are our friends, so we should provide them their needs.
So keeping enough space for this type of fish is what they need most apart from food, and so a 55 gallon tank cannot contain more than one of this fish.
If you want to keep 2 of them, then 125-150 gallon is the ideal, but if you want to have more, then do your maths and get the right tank size for them.
