Aggressive Penguin Tetra

[vancouver]

I have 4 hockey stick tetras in my 40g tank..

1 is larger than the others - was the only one of my previous group to survive a heater malfunction.

He basically now rules the tank.. He likes to nip all the other fish, and only lets certain fish into the middle of the tank. He thinks it's his area, and definitely has a claim to it..

He is starting to bother the other fish toooo much.. I don't know if adding a school of other tetras would help, or adding more hockey sticks/penguins...

He is a pain in my bum bum...

 

[nmonks]

Keep tetras (or barbs, or danios, or rasboras) in groups of six or more. In smaller groups their hierarchical behaviour causes all kinds of problems such as those described by you. Schooling fish are NOT peaceful or mindless animals. Within the group their is a hierarchy, and fish will jostle for position in the pecking order. In the wild they live in groups of hundreds if not thousands, and no one individual can dominate the pack. But when aquarists make the mistake of buying too few of them, then it's easy for one fish to become the dominant member of the group. So simply keep adding more tetras until the school settles down. Easy as that. Since you have 40 gallons to play with, keeping less than twelve is just silly. These fish look fabulous in large groups.

Any good aquarium book should state whether a fish should be kept singly, in matched pairs, or in schools. Ignore such advice at your peril!

Cheers, Neale

 

[Darth]

Dude a big school/shoal of them would look awesome...... Btw nice avatar