# RCS Dario Dario Compatibility



## Brendan Redler (Jun 1, 2008)

Most of the accounts I have heard about Dario Dario and RCS have been fairly peaceful except for newly hatched shrimp. So to add to my 10gal dario dario tank, I ordered some RCS...but recently the dario dario seem to have decimated my snail population, so things are looking less than stellar for my RCS prospects :icon_hang. There are a few shrimp in the tank already, but it seems like the dario dario chase/hunt them when they can. No missing shrimp that I can tell so far, but I'm concerned about dumping in juvenile foodlike items into the top of the tank like I do with live worms/brine shrimp...

So should I try to setup another tank (which I already have on hand) with established tank water and some algae-covered rocks for the RCS and keep the species separate? The only other option is to chuck 'em in and hope they don't get eaten or hunted into hiding (much less desirable if it fails).


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## SpeedEuphoria (Jul 9, 2008)

I think it would be a good idea to have then separate, then once the population grows you can add some to the other tank and not worry about loosing them all.

Otherwise, turn off the light and try to manually place the RCS in the bottom or near into good hiding spots to give them a fighting chance.


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## Asgard (Mar 19, 2008)

Interesting thread..., I have a lot of RCS, over 300, allready sold/gave away another 100 or so (started with 10 november last year). I have 2 small tanks (60L &17L and a cement tank outdoors) and actually I was thinking of adding Dario dario to keep the population down a little, I started my 17L 2 weeks ago with a selection of about 10 females, some berried, and have over 50 shrimplets in the tank now, so I don't mind if I lose some shrimplets to D. dario. 
You say D.dario decimated your snails, what kind of snails where they?, it would be a most pleasant side-effect , 
You also mention you allready have some shrimp, what kind are they and are they adults and being hunted?, I wouldn't want D.dario to eat all of my shrimp. Adult shrimp are about the same size as D. dario, so I figured it wouldn't be a problem to add some D.dario. 
I'm very curious how you do, so please keep the thread alive.


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## Brendan Redler (Jun 1, 2008)

They don't really hunt and kill the shrimp that I've seen, they just sort of dart at them and the shrimp are fast enough to get away. I have (confirmed) one male RCS, two amano, and probably one female RCS, although I haven't seen her in a while. They were adept at hiding when the badis weren't in there but now you almost never see them.

The snails were just the small ordinary pond snails that have kind of an inflated corkscrew shape to the shell. The sort that only get about 3/8" at the largest. I removed a bunch of the adult snails, but that didn't seem to do much. Then this weekend I fed my dario dario (two of them, one adult, one juvenile) some live brine shrimp, which are by far their favorite food, and left for the weekend. So they weren't fed any food from friday around 3pm until sunday around 8pm. This is by all accounts a reasonable amount of time for fish to go unfed, but if they were used to sizeable amounts of live food daily, they would probably kick into the "EAT EVERYTHING" mode...more than usual ;-)

When I first looked in the tank, I first noticed some thread algae because my CO2 had run out, but the high lights were still going. Then as I looked around at the tank I noticed no snails! There are still a few larger ones, but it seems like the small ones are all gone. The interesting part is that I didn't remove any of the very small ones because it was too difficult, so any snail reduction in that size range was due (probably) to the dario dario.

To be honest I doubt they could eat adult shrimp, but they'll probably try. Even if you don't put them in your shrimp tank, GET SOME! They're neat little ambush hunters. Mine are just starting to get use to the tank and people walking by it enough that they will skulk around the edges of the plants and hover around the hairgrass. When they eat, I put live food in and as the worms or brine shrimp start to swim/drift/wiggle to the bottom, the dario dario will sit still near the edges of my hygro and then dart out right before the food disappears into the hairgrass and explode on it.

And just as a heads up, it looks like you were assuming the scientific name of this fish is _Dario dario_, but it is my impression that it is a variety of _Badis bengalensis_.


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## Asgard (Mar 19, 2008)

Brendan Redler said:


> They don't really hunt and kill the shrimp that I've seen, they just sort of dart at them and the shrimp are fast enough to get away. I have (confirmed) one male RCS, two amano, and probably one female RCS, although I haven't seen her in a while. They were adept at hiding when the badis weren't in there but now you almost never see them.


Shrimp are group animals, they tend to be very shy if kept with less then 10, if you 've expanded the group you'll see they come more out in the open.



Brendan Redler said:


> The snails were just the small ordinary pond snails that have kind of an inflated corkscrew shape to the shell. The sort that only get about 3/8" at the largest. I removed a bunch of the adult snails, but that didn't seem to do much. Then this weekend I fed my dario dario (two of them, one adult, one juvenile) some live brine shrimp, which are by far their favorite food, and left for the weekend. So they weren't fed any food from friday around 3pm until sunday around 8pm. This is by all accounts a reasonable amount of time for fish to go unfed, but if they were used to sizeable amounts of live food daily, they would probably kick into the "EAT EVERYTHING" mode...more than usual ;-)
> 
> When I first looked in the tank, I first noticed some thread algae because my CO2 had run out, but the high lights were still going. Then as I looked around at the tank I noticed no snails! There are still a few larger ones, but it seems like the small ones are all gone. The interesting part is that I didn't remove any of the very small ones because it was too difficult, so any snail reduction in that size range was due (probably) to the dario dario.
> 
> To be honest I doubt they could eat adult shrimp, but they'll probably try. Even if you don't put them in your shrimp tank, GET SOME! They're neat little ambush hunters. Mine are just starting to get use to the tank and people walking by it enough that they will skulk around the edges of the plants and hover around the hairgrass. When they eat, I put live food in and as the worms or brine shrimp start to swim/drift/wiggle to the bottom, the dario dario will sit still near the edges of my hygro and then dart out right before the food disappears into the hairgrass and explode on it.


That's good news, I have nematodes, shrimplets, small snails for them breed enchytreen and daphnia myself so I think I'll start looking for some D.dario then. , Well actually I'm looking for Dario hysginon (I keep Danio margaritatus (celestial pearls) and D. hysginon is from Myanmar too), but have never seen them in the trade so D.dario will have to do.



Brendan Redler said:


> And just as a heads up, it looks like you were assuming the scientific name of this fish is _Dario dario_, but it is my impression that it is a variety of _Badis bengalensis_.


Well actually..., Dario dario = Badis badis bengalensis, (BBB) is just the old name for them, they're now called D.dario 

practicalfishkeeping magazine
_"The small and colourful dario species Dario dario and D. hysginon are small and colourful species, reaching a length of around 2.5cm/1", making them ideal for small aquaria.

The Dario species are distinguished from the Badis species by their size and also by having a more truncated caudal fin, the males having prolonged pelvic fins that reach the anal fin and all Dario species miss the bony tubes on their lateral line scales that form a visible lateral line.

Dario dario

They also differ in breeding behaviour (see above). But D. dario is often labelled and sold as B. bengalensis, a name that is actually invalid."
_


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## Brendan Redler (Jun 1, 2008)

Yep, great little fish!

Thanks for the info on the sci. name.

As an interesting side note, mine have much less vibrant red than blue. The "silver-blue" stripes/bands that people say they have are more prominent and they also have incredible blue spots. Only during feeding do they really perk up and turn true red.


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## Asgard (Mar 19, 2008)

Could it be that it is not so red because you have only 1 adult?, maybe in a little group the dominant male will display it's colors more often?


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## Brendan Redler (Jun 1, 2008)

Maybe, I have two males. One adult and one juvenile that's just starting to color up. They get into a pissing match about every five minutes and they both color up but it's mostly the striping. We'll see how it all pans out though. Shrimp get here tomorrow!!!


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## Asgard (Mar 19, 2008)

Made a decision yet?, Are you putting the shrimp (how many are you receiving?) in with the dario's in your 10G or keep them apart?


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## Brendan Redler (Jun 1, 2008)

Got the (30) shrimp in the mail today and they are doing great. Separate tank for now because they're all very small. Two or three that look to be around six months old and the rest are about 1/4" and under. NOTE: the ones that are much smaller than 0.25" were not counted in the 30 sold. I'll put some of them in when I feel that they won't get annihilated and when I have enough to spare some should the unfortunate occur.


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## Asgard (Mar 19, 2008)

Sounds great! 30 is a nice number to start with. I'd definitely keep them apart until they start breeding.
You'll likely lose some due to molding etc.


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## Asgard (Mar 19, 2008)

Well, I run into some Dario dario yesterday and couldn't resist buying 4 of them. (they were still in plastic bags, the LFS just got them, so I was able to choose from 10 new arrivals. I've bought 2 bright colored males, and 2 (either females or juvenile males), can't really tell. I've put them in a 17L tank (40*25*20cm) for now. Within half an hour the two males started a fight for tank domination, didn't get too physical, some tail smashing and a lot of 'showing off'. After that the submissive male has got his own corner and keeps a low profile. The two others never got in to a fight with one of the males, they show submissive behavior when the dominant male is around and he's fine withe that and leaves them alone. They do fight amongst themselves a little but nothing serious. most of the time they're all busy with Dario behavior: ambushing anything that might move.
In the tank I also have a population of my RCS, (about 15 adult and 50 shrimplets), they're not too happy about the Dario's. Even though the fish never made a full out attack, but merely showed their interest, the shrimp got into 'hiding mode'. This morning some of the adult shrimp couldn't be bothered with the Dario's, but most of the shrimp are still hidden.

Well that's my story of the day, how are your shrimp doing?


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## Brendan Redler (Jun 1, 2008)

My RCS are doing great! Spawned once with 8 babies that I've confirmed and have survived six or so days.

In my D. dario tank they are both starting to really color up RED. The cherry shrimp that were already in that tank have come out of hiding mode and are moving around in the open now without so much as a second look from the D. dario. Unfortunately I can only feed them live food, which fortunately is cheap but a pain to do 100% of the time. Even if there is a brine shrimp that is dead when I put some live ones in, they won't touch it. In recent news I also found a guy at my work who is getting rid of a veritable stockpile of tanks! FOR FREE! So I'll finally have another 30H after my 20 year old one sprung a leak, a 20 standard, and a couple others. Not sure that I can set them up until next summer though...unfortunately I'm going back to school in three weeks and can only take a 10 gallon...or two if housing doesn't find out. For the record; I _AM_ taking two and housing _WON'T_ find out .

Also, I'm finally doing away with my DIY CO2 setup and moving up to pressurized! I'm tired of algae blooms due to inconsistent CO2. I'm sure that's what it is too, because the ferts and lights are stable, but when the CO2 drops off after a period of working well...I get thread and spot algae.

Anywho, I'm doing pretty good in the shrimp dept. I'll take some pics of the tanks and post when I get a chance.


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## Asgard (Mar 19, 2008)

I couldn't bare the sight of my scared RCS , so I move the dario's to my other tank with the celestial pearls, had to get the bee shrimp out of there first. The RCS tank is a tank with anubias nana and moonrock, some vals, but not enough hiding spaces for the shrimp, and not enough vision blocking to keep the dario's apart from each other. The CP tank is bigger 54L 60*30*30cm and heavily planted.
That tank is awaiting new scaping and the cp and dario's will be transferred to cement tanks outside for awhile.
As for feeding the dario's, I feed them enchytreen, which I breed myself (easy to do) the enchytreen will live for hours in fresh water, so that's perfect hunting material for them, as are tubifex or bloodworms, they didn't care much for daphnia, up to now.
Looking forward to see some pictures of your tanks, I 'll try to post some pictures of my tanks also.


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## Brendan Redler (Jun 1, 2008)

This is what it looked like until today when I redid it ENTIRELY. I wasn't happy with the overall look so I just redid it. The rotala was too much of a PITA to keep in check for such a small tank and my ludwigia just didn't suit the tank either.

Now it's HC in the front instead of standard baby tears, lots of hairgrass to the left, H. polysperma pink in the far right corner, that same monster H. kompakt and some blyxa japonica. I'll take pics of that in a couple weeks when it starts looking like a tank


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## Asgard (Mar 19, 2008)

It allready is a nice tank! 

These are my tanks:
At first I had the Dario's in the Rena (the white one with vals and anubias plants), but all shrimps were hidden, so I transferred them to the Rekord60 (the tank with the galaxies).
But last week I was missing my two Atyopsis moluccensis shrimp in that tank so I completely emptied the tank (didn't find the shrimp though, not even in the house , I have a tile floor!, they just vanished ) 
So now the Dario's and galaxies are in my cement tanks in the garden, where I keep my outdoor CRS population.
I needed re-scaping the rekord60 anyway (new background, different (darker) gravel), I kept my old water so I can restart easier. I think I'll keep the fish outside until end of summer, at least until after my vacation, they can live of mosquito larva and daphnia during my vacation. So I need nobody to take care of them.
btw I'm from the Netherlands, nearby Rotterdam, where are you from?


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## Brendan Redler (Jun 1, 2008)

Great looking tanks! I like the first one a lot, and the background on the second one looks good too...must have taken some time.

I think you misunderstood, I just redid the tank completely, so it'll be a couple weeks before it grows in any. I just decided to go a different route. More open space and I'm going to prune my rotala better so that it grows into a shrub instead of a MASS. I'll have my pressurized setup on thursday at the latest so hopefully I can quell some of the problems with DIY CO2 inconsistency.

I think the new setup will compliment the small tank size better...you know, make the tank look bigger than it is. Just comparing pictures with the old setup shows that quite readily.










I also actually added some rotala back in the left corner to grow into a bush last night. I'll take pics in a week for an update...maybe I'll do a journal. Anywho the plants are:

back right: H. polysperma pink
front right: B. japonica
1/4 from right: H. kompakt
front and center: H. callicatroides (sp?)
left side: Dwarf Hairgrass
back left corner: R. rotundafolia

Floating is some HC that I'm just waiting to sell.

Fauna: (2) D. dario, (2) C. japonica, (3) N. japonica var. red

The D. dario don't even phase the shrimp anymore. They will even dart to a point right over the shrimp as if to ambush them but the shrimp don't especially care. The D. dario just hover for a second all puffed up then dart away again. NEAT little fish.

I'm on the east coast of the USA, 20min from Washington DC.


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## Asgard (Mar 19, 2008)

Yep, I misunderstood, I thought the first pic was your re-scape  , but your re-scape looks full of potential too.
The light background in the second tank is a Back to Nature Slimline White Limestone I only had to glue it in with some silicone, peace of cake .
My tanks are more sort of low-tech, I don't have a heater, nor do I use CO2, plants are doing fine though. I do use a little EasyLife Carbo and EasyLife Profito. The first tank has a 15W TL the second a 12V10W light bulb. But even then I got red leafs on my R. rotundifolia in the first tank. My rescape of the first tank will have less plants (I think), smaller Val. species (I like the vertical collumns they create), no more Crypto's, balansea (too big), willissi (too messy looking), some R. rotundifolia, some R. wallichi, P. helferi (downoi), some Myriophyllum, and Javamoss maybe Javafern.
Washington DC, well keeping shrimp outdoors in winter is not an option, too much frost, our winters are (usually) milder.
Well, I relocated the Dario's again, (they must hate me by now), actually they don't seem to mind, very easy going fish! one of the males tries very hard to impress the females, so I'm hoping for offspring, would be kind of cool.
The tank (well, sort of), a male, a male and female, rcs and galaxies tanks in the garden


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## Brendan Redler (Jun 1, 2008)

Well, as it turns out...mine aren't really D. dario. They're Badis ruber.

Do a google search and you can see what they look like. More sedately colored than D. dario, but when they color up (which is seldom) it's way more intense than D. dario.

I think I'll get a different tank and breed some D. dario when I can get them from a reliable source.


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## Asgard (Mar 19, 2008)

Badis ruber is a nice fish too, I didn't dare buying them because they can grow up to 5" and was afraid (still am) that they would be the end of my galaxy and shrimp populations.
There is a nice article about them (and aother badis/dario species) at practicalfiskeeping.


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## Brendan Redler (Jun 1, 2008)

Asgard said:


> Badis ruber is a nice fish too, I didn't dare buying them because they can grow up to 5" and was afraid (still am) that they would be the end of my galaxy and shrimp populations.
> There is a nice article about them (and aother badis/dario species) at practicalfiskeeping.


Yep, read it already . My fish look (IMHO) better than the pics you see, but I still wanted some smaller fish for that tank and the consistent red color of the darios. I'll see if I can sell my B. ruber at the next auction in my area. If not, I'll just have to set up another tank to keep them, because they will easily get the size of my kribensis (about 4").


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## Chuppy (Aug 5, 2007)

You should try finding this new species(rare too) of Ruby tetra.. They are small.. no more aggressive than the Neon tetra and really red!!

Drew


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## Asgard (Mar 19, 2008)

They are beauties, but I like to stick with the (sub-tropical) Asian fishes/biotope.

If I had the space for it, I'd want a 40G+ tank with a large school of White Clouds (Tanichthys albonubes), a couple of Paradise fish (Macropodus ocellatus or opercularis) a few White cheek Gobies (Rhinogobius duospilus) and some Myer's Hillstream loaches (Pseudogastromyzon myersi). If the tank is large enough maybe also a school of Golden barbs (Puntius semifasciolatus), if I could find any, not the shuberti's, but the wild specimens and throw in a lot of RCS as maintenance crew.
Then finally, I'll have my S.E. China biotope. 
Why this choice?: They're all hardy, easy to take care for, sub-tropical (no heater required) fish, that I can hold outside in ponds/tubs during summer (easy tank maintenance), the White Clouds and Paradise fish can even stay outside during winters.

If I'd go tropical; a 25G+ tank would probably hold a couple of Peacock gobies (Tateurdina ocellicauda) a school of Spotted blue-eyes (Pseudomugil gertrudae) and/or a school of Forktail Blue-eyes (Pseudomugil furcatus).
A Papua New Guinea biotope so to speak.

Untill then I'll keep my Celestial Pearl Danios (now Danio margaritatus) and keep my eyes open for the Red Dario (Dario hysginon) and the Rosy loach (Tuberoschistura arakanensis) and see if I can complete my Myanmar biotope.


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