Emperor Tetras

[techen]

So I started with 6 of these guys, which resulted in a lot of bullying.
 
So later I bought another 12, there's far more females than males in my tank. I think overall there's 4 males and the rest are females but am still having bullying issues. A lot of them end up being stuck at the side of the tank due to one big mean male being a pain in the rear. Any ideas fokes?
 

 

[Chad]

I've found that tall plants can help or some other aquascape feature that allows them a place to hide from the big fish but more often than not in a group that size the picking levels out after a few days.

 

[techen]

Its been a few weeks with 12 of these guys and they still bug each other.

 

[Chad]

How close in size are they and just how aggressive is it? They will pick for the alpha position and work to maintain it.


Basically you get the choice of either helping the other fish hide, securing the top dog his slot by removing similarly sized fish, or kocking him off his perch by adding larger fish. Of course you can always remove him too.

 

[techen]

Two of the biggest males are the ones that chase the other fish around, Am not entirely sure how big they are but they are my biggest tetras.
 
I have a lot of hiding spaces in my tank tho.

 

[Chad]

Removing one of them might be a good idea so there is a clear victor. It seems to me that they are both trying to be the boss.

 

[DrRob]

What are they in with? My similarly sized tetras tend to be far less aggressive, but that's probably because they're busy watching their backs.