Australian Rainbowfish Aquarium Question

Before I go adding anything in this tank I need to know something. I was under the impression that I need to have a bottom environment to help clean up fallen food not eaten by the rainbowfish. I thought that a few bottom dwellers would help keep the tank cleaner and thought maybe a pair of kribensis would be a good idea. Is this the case?

So I guess my main question is this? Should there be a bottom environment for a rainbowfish tank?

Info: The school is 11 young Australian Rainbowfish in a 4 foot, fully planted, double filtered tank, heated, good lighting, regular water changes, driftwood, natural river rock and stone. I try to remember not to over care for the tank so I have to remember that a perfect tank isn't always the healthiest way to go. It gets hard though 'cause I want to micro manage my tank sometimes. :-) Anyway - Everyone looks really good right now. They're getting so big too. I purchased them for $2 each at Petsmart when they were about 2.5 inches or so. They look great. I don't want to jack that up but...if a bottom environment is healthier then I have two healthy kribs that I can add. There is sufficient aged driftwood in the tank and I have cave areas here and there, maybe, maybe 6 or 7 cave areas created when I was setting the tank up. I though it would be cool to have little caves so I did it when I first set up the tank. LOL.

I personally like the idea of a single species rainbow tank but if a bottom environment is healthy then please provide suggestions for rainbowfish tank make bottom dwellers.

Thank you,

Faith
SUNDRIP - Art for Life
http://www.sundrip.com

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Comment by GSP on January 4, 2013 at 2:44am: I don't know what this bottom environment that your talking about is... But it should like you're looking for an answer before a problem has even presented itself as a possibility.

And rainbows are glutinous pigs that eat more than they should often, so if you are managing to feed them more food that what they can consume, Therein lies your problem and solution.

Comment by Faith-Magdalene Austin on January 4, 2013 at 2:06pm: Okay. Got it.

I was always told when setting up a fish tank that there should be top swimmers, middle swimmers and bottom swimmers. I thought this would be the case with the rainbows as well. That's what I meant by having a bottom environment. I meant that I wanted to make sure I had all three, top, middle and bottom fish. I thought that was how its suppose to be.

I like the idea of having nothing but rainbow in that tank. I'll leave it that way.

Thank you for your comment.

Comment by GSP on January 4, 2013 at 2:15pm: yours is what is called a species tank. commonly used for breeding species uninhibited and distracted by other fish. given the right water parametres and combination of male and females, your rainbows may spawn as they are frequent tank breeders in this situation.

as for the top mid and low levels to fill, this applies to community mixed species tanks. you want to put thought into that so that the tank looks well stocked because the fish fillout the tank in all its areas and so that your similar schooling species aRE MORE LIKELY TO MOVE IN DISTINCT GROUPINGS RATHER THAN A MIXED SCHOOL.

im not yelling, i just hit caps lock haha.

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