Buenos Aires Tetras

[Mark Webb]

Anybody had experience keeping this species in a planted tank. I read they are prone to munching plants?

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

Anybody had experience keeping this species in a planted tank. I read they are prone to munching plants?

They definitely eat soft plants with dissected leaves, but not ones like Echinodorus. People never used to feed their fish any vegetables like lettuce etc., which meant that a lot of fish got the reputation as plant eaters when they just needed some vegetables in their diet.

They do get big however.

cheers Darrel

 

[Mark Webb]

Thanks Darrel, sounds like a no no for a planted tank then.

 

[Alastair]

I kept them in a plantedtank and like darrel said, they nibbled on certain plants. Once I put in a bit of lettuce each week this stopped.

 

[George Farmer]

Hi Mark

Consider these bad boys, Red fin Colombian tetra - http://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/c ... p?sid=2680

I kept a shoal in my 240 litre jungle earlier this year. Stunning fish that colour-up beautifully once settled. Apparently they can be a tad aggressive but I had no issues. I put that down to a decent sized shoal and heavy planting.

Note the different in colouration between mine in my planted tank and the images from the link above.

A shoal of 60 or so would look amazing in your 1,000 litre...

Cheers,
George

 

[Mark Webb]

Fantastic. Thanks George.

 

[Gary Nelson]

Hi Mark

Consider these bad boys, Red fin Colombian tetra - http://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/c ... p?sid=2680

I kept a shoal in my 240 litre jungle earlier this year. Stunning fish that colour-up beautifully once settled. Apparently they can be a tad aggressive but I had no issues. I put that down to a decent sized shoal and heavy planting.

Note the different in colouration between mine in my planted tank and the images from the link above.

A shoal of 60 or so would look amazing in your 1,000 litre...

Cheers,
George

George, did you give them any special foods to get yours to that lovely color? I was looking at these today in the LFS for my next setup... They seem quite active too.

 

[George Farmer]

Hi Gary

I feed all my fish a combination of colour enhancing dry food (Tetra ProCrisp Colour) and frozen foods, enriched artemia, bloodworm and mysis. For larger fish I also feed Tetra Prima.

Cheers,
George

 

[Gary Nelson]

Hi Gary

I feed all my fish a combination of colour enhancing dry food (Tetra ProCrisp Colour) and frozen foods, enriched artemia, bloodworm and mysis. For larger fish I also feed Tetra Prima.

Cheers,
George

Thanks for that info George, I think I will definitely go for 10 and follow the food you have advised as yours looked stunning in the article you did.

Thanks again

 

[OllieNZ]

Hey Gary
Ive also kept colombian tetras in the past, wonderful fish, I had no aggression issues and fed only standard flake food and they coloured up as nicely as George's. They did take a while to settle in and colour up though.