Black Skirt Tetra Emergency!

[mp0033price]

My son had a black skirt tetra in his tank since Dec. We decided to get him a few to go with it, so hubby picked up 6 more Sunday.. When he brought the bag in, one was in bad shape. It's tail fin was halfway gone.. It looked smaller than the others too, so I blamed hubby for not paying attention to the ones he purchased and seperated it in a hospital tank. It was dead the next day. I also thought maybe it was the smaller diff. type that he had got my mistake and the others turned on it.. Don't really know what happened there. Put mine in with the other 5 and they shoaled and seemed great. I was happy he wasn't alone anymore.. Then today, my son started yelling that another fishies tale was gone.. Went and checked and 2 were beat up and swimming near top, one dead and my original tetra (biggest by the way, but not by far) and one other swimming together near bottom.. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thought these were peaceful fish...

 

[TiffanyJayne]

My son had a black skirt tetra in his tank since Dec. We decided to get him a few to go with it, so hubby picked up 6 more Sunday.. When he brought the bag in, one was in bad shape. It's tail fin was halfway gone.. It looked smaller than the others too, so I blamed hubby for not paying attention to the ones he purchased and seperated it in a hospital tank. It was dead the next day. I also thought maybe it was the smaller diff. type that he had got my mistake and the others turned on it.. Don't really know what happened there. Put mine in with the other 5 and they shoaled and seemed great. I was happy he wasn't alone anymore.. Then today, my son started yelling that another fishies tale was gone.. Went and checked and 2 were beat up and swimming near top, one dead and my original tetra (biggest by the way, but not by far) and one other swimming together near bottom.. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thought these were peaceful fish...

Peaceful maybe, sometimes.

I have 6, along with 6 red eyes and 3 opaline gouramis all boystress and nippy, lovely to look at nasty when in smaller numbers, from my experience they will harrase the smallest to death then the next smallest, then the next until they are top dog erm...tetra.

The problem is always size, yours has had time to grow where as hubby would of gained 6 younger ones so it's a battle, the only 2 ways i know of how to get around it is: go all out, lots of plants/hidy places/feed often/buy more to share agression or....put something else in. Red eyes work well as to silver tips and serpae all known for being a little more heavy handed than your usual tetra so they have something else to focus on. either could of course work against you and mean you have more fish being killed/picked on and are now more out of pocket.

Hope you find a solution im sure your boys not enjoying waking up to poorly fish.

 

[mp0033price]

The first one beat up was still in the bag, so I know our original one didn't do the first one. However, I don't put it past him because I bought him in a group of 3 and he's the only surviver of that group. That's why I wanted 6 more.. I thought the more, the less fighting! They are in a 29 gallon btw with 2 plecs as the only other fish. There's a few plastic plants, a log hideout, a rock cave, and a pirate ship that has hidey holes. The ones that get picked don't go into hiding. They just take the abuse and hang around.. I called the store and they say they will refund my money if I bring in the dead ones and exchange the live ones if I'm not happy. I hate to do it, but I'm tired of this.. I have an aggressive african tank and i expect that of them. This is supposed to be the community tank and we aren't satisfied with their personalities. I'll let him pick out something more calm for his tank. Maybe just trade them for cories. We loved the one of those guys we had, but he got stuck to our filter in-pipe. Since then, we have put a sponge on it. Any other suggestions? We haven't tried anything else really.. Mollys or guppies totally friendly?

 

[TiffanyJayne]

The first one beat up was still in the bag, so I know our original one didn't do the first one. However, I don't put it past him because I bought him in a group of 3 and he's the only surviver of that group. That's why I wanted 6 more.. I thought the more, the less fighting! They are in a 29 gallon btw with 2 plecs as the only other fish. There's a few plastic plants, a log hideout, a rock cave, and a pirate ship that has hidey holes. The ones that get picked don't go into hiding. They just take the abuse and hang around.. I called the store and they say they will refund my money if I bring in the dead ones and exchange the live ones if I'm not happy. I hate to do it, but I'm tired of this.. I have an aggressive african tank and i expect that of them. This is supposed to be the community tank and we aren't satisfied with their personalities. I'll let him pick out something more calm for his tank. Maybe just trade them for cories. We loved the one of those guys we had, but he got stuck to our filter in-pipe. Since then, we have put a sponge on it. Any other suggestions? We haven't tried anything else really.. Mollys or guppies totally friendly?

I have 15 tanks...you name a friendly fish i've probably got it lol.

Give me an idea of what your looking for (colour, personallity, night crawlers) and i'll do my best to help you out with what i know.

I took 3 barb back today as they were bullying my fish, i know how hard it is but it's either let more die or let them go in with 20 others where they may have more of a chance, i love fish they brilliant but sometime they can be so stupid! My cat fish swims into the glass repeatedly and my convicts hang around whilst being nipped.

 

[mp0033price]

TiffanyJayne, I want to keep my plecs, and I'd like to get something that shoals or schools, but NO NIPPING! I don't have a lot of places to shop nearby though, so that would be the tough part, so it would probably have to be common in order for me to get to some.. I'm pretty much just starting over in that tank so anything would go as long as it isn't nippy.. I know I keep saying that, but it's important.. LOL I'd also like something that reproduces easily.

I had pea puffers which we loved, but our filter got them..
I had cories which I loved, but my son insists on keeping his gravel..
I don't care for black skirt tetras now..
My tank is 29 gallon, so nothing too big..

Just want a peaceful lil fish that will swim around and be happy and sociable... LOL

 

[TiffanyJayne]

Ok well something that shoals, tetras anything from pencil to black tetras the problem you may have is fish tend to only shoal when they feel unsafe, safety in numbers and all that so once there settled in they may not shoal.
Something that reproduces well guppies, platties, mollies all pretty colourful and have babies once a week
In my community tank (which is more of a tetra tank) i have about 11 types of tetra, 5 types of catfish, 2 loach, 2 frogs and 2 rams the only nipping i see is from the smallest blue tetra in the tank who finds it fun to chase the rather large rams but nothing major.

dwarf gouramis may work well as they tend to be sold in 3's and for the more lively ones that have a wonderful personality danios they are good little breeders and come in some stunning varieties, non nippers i have danio's(leopard,pearl,giant and zebra) male betta for added colour and otocinclus to clean up the mess.

Have a google of the above and nip to your LFS to see what they have, if you see something your not sure about write it down and either check it out on the web or drop me a message and i'll let you know what i know about it, so you know if/what can be mixed with it, how many you need ect.
And if you LFS is anything like ours is you find out the days when they order stock and leave a deposit they normally order something in just for you if they don't plan on having it as stock and it's not too rare or outragous.

Hope this helps, i look forward to hearing your choices and seeing the new non nippy tank

 

[mp0033price]

Well, I think I did a no no......... Good news is I now have new non-nipping fish! Bad news is.. It's super bad.. I bought what I thought was blue tetras like you mentioned in your post. Came home and searched them out. They are dyed I guess. I had no idea when I bought them. Just thought they showed up good. Uugh! I am really mad at myself and hate that they have been done like this. Do you think they are injected or just fed something with dye in it? Everyone on here is gonna start flaming on me, but I guess I deserve it. Well, I can say that I am learning ALL the fish business the HARD way... I got 6 of them and 6 red eyed moes, but they don't look like the ones I found online either..... They are really short with fat lil' bellies! So cute... And they all seem to be doing great. Thanks Tiffany Jayne for your kindness, btw!

 

[fishnovice]

TiffanyJayne, I want to keep my plecs, and I'd like to get something that shoals or schools, but NO NIPPING! I don't have a lot of places to shop nearby though, so that would be the tough part, so it would probably have to be common in order for me to get to some.. I'm pretty much just starting over in that tank so anything would go as long as it isn't nippy.. I know I keep saying that, but it's important.. LOL I'd also like something that reproduces easily.

I had pea puffers which we loved, but our filter got them..
I had cories which I loved, but my son insists on keeping his gravel..
I don't care for black skirt tetras now..
My tank is 29 gallon, so nothing too big..

Just want a peaceful lil fish that will swim around and be happy and sociable... LOL

Your best bet would be guppies and/or endlers, preferably all males as they are much more colourful and you won't have a population explosion! You say you want to breed them, well can't beat guppies for that as they breed like rabbits.Must have more females(plain silver & larger)than colourful males though. Otherwise sex mad males would hassle the females constantly if there weren't enough of them to keep the boys amused! What plans do you have for rehoming dozens of guppy fry on a regular basis? I keep angelfish in my livebearer tank and rarely see any fry.WARNING _ don't get 2 angels as they will fight constantly. Either just one or at least four, but you don't have the space anyway for them