Rainbow Shiner
Notropis chrosomus
Leuciscidae
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About
The rainbow shiner is a North American stream minnow from the Mobile Bay drainage of Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee, and it is one of the very few genuinely cool-water fish that looks tropical. Out of season it is a plain silver fish with a dark stripe; in spring the males go violet over the head, red at the snout and electric blue in the pelvic fins, and a shoal in a bright, fast tank will out-colour most rainbowfish. FishBase gives a maximum of 8.1 cm with most fish around 5 cm — and that page now heads itself Hydrophlox chrosomus, because the species has been moved out of Notropis. Shops and this catalogue still carry the older binomial, so expect to meet both. What that colour costs is temperature. This is a riffle fish from clear, cool headwater creeks, it wants a genuine seasonal cool-down in winter, and the commonest way to fail with it is to keep it like a rainbowfish in a heated planted tank. Lives are short too — usually under two years.
Care
Keep it in an unheated, brightly lit stream tank: 15-21 °C is the sweet spot and the tolerance runs roughly 8-24 °C, so a warm room in July is a bigger threat than a cold January. It is rheophilic, so give it real current — ten times the tank volume per hour or more — with high oxygen and a gravel or pebble bed carrying a few larger stones for spawning. Eight is the minimum shoal and twelve looks far better; small groups lose both colour and nerve. At 8 cm and never still, it needs at least 80 cm of length and 100 litres, plus a lid, because a startled shiner leaves the water. It is peaceful, but its tankmates have to be cool-water fish as well, which rules out most of the standard community list.
Diet
Insectivorous micro-predator; wild guts are over 80% invertebrates, mainly chironomid larvae. Feed daphnia, cyclops, bloodworm and brine shrimp alongside a good flake or micro-pellet.
Tankmate compatibility
Gets along with (23)
Possible with care (38)
Avoid (357)
Computed by the AquaSage engine for a spacious reference tank — always check the full verdict for your exact setup in the calculator.
Telling males from females
What works for this species, most reliable first.
- Belly depthA hint only · only on well-fed adults, and only as a comparison
For most tetras, barbs and rasboras this is all there is: a conditioned female is deeper through the belly than a male of the same length.
Also in these lists
Similar species
Same category and the closest water parameters — if this species isn't quite it, start here.
Sold in Lithuania
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Frequently asked questions
- What tank size does a Rainbow Shiner need?
- A Rainbow Shiner needs an aquarium of at least 100 litres (26.4 US gallons) with a footprint at least 80 cm (31.5 in) long — for this species, swimming length matters as much as raw volume.
- What water parameters does a Rainbow Shiner need?
- Rainbow Shiner does best at 8–24 °C (46.4–75.2 °F), pH 6.5–8 and a general hardness of 4–18 °dGH.
- What group size does a Rainbow Shiner need?
- Rainbow Shiner is a social species — keep a group of at least 8 so natural behaviour emerges and stress stays low.
- Is the Rainbow Shiner suitable for beginners?
- Rainbow Shiner sits in the middle of the difficulty scale — manageable for a careful beginner who has done the reading, but it has specific needs worth researching first.