Red eye tetras

[gordon1973]

Now that Cheese specialist helped me identify these unknown tetras of mine
I have been reading up on them and "Numbers: This is a shoaling fish and should be kept in
Groups of at least 6"

Mine are the complete opposite they have found their own little nooks and beware any red eye that comes near !

Seems unusual any explainations

 

[Sanj]

Hmm I was born in Slough, glad I didnt grow up there.


Red eyes are shoaling fishm, but not schoolers. So you might find they spread put even have their own localised territories. Some other tetras do that like Black Phantom Tetras.

If they were in a large tank or around significantly larger fish they would be more inclined to stick closer together. My cardinals spread out sometimes, sometimes shoal and they are in a failry large aquarium, the rummys on the other hand are in schools 90% of the time.

 

[keeper-of-fish]

My red eyes spend some time with each other but also some time alone the thing i noticed most is when i got my angels they ganged up on them and tryed to nip there fins but now the angels have grown and they dont pester them one of the red eyes riped off one of my angels fins but it grew back in a few weeks luckily which i was anticeipating.

 

[millym]

hi there,
we've had red eyes for nearly a year - started off with 6 now sadly down to 2 from various reasons....... ours almost never swam in a little school(when there was more of them) unless they were scared such as when we were messing around in the tank cleaning or planting stuff. they all had their own little 'patch' & would spend most of their day just bobbing around in that own little patch occasionally making an effort to chase an 'invader' away.....well they made us laugh theyd only chase the invader away if it was smaller than them.like a teeny neon or something
theyre gorgeous fish though & if we hadnt gone a bit mad with other fish & could get a bigger tank, we would definitely get some more again. we've got one monster red eye left who is 2& a half inches long and about an inch & a half wide. our other survivor is alot smaller. i just love their mean little mouths & the fluro red colour around their eyes, its just so stunning against the silver & black tail stripe

 

[gordon1973]

thanks millym, thats sounds like mine. Ok its not unusual and I shall relax !

 

[BigSteve]

I had 3 for a while, and they very much did their own thing. One was
always "out front", quite lively, and sometimes the bully. The other 2 tended to
pretty much hide or stay way in the background, just hanging out in one place.
I did not get the feeling they would school or shoal even if I'd had more. They
are one of the coolest-looking tetras, but I didn't feel they were working out in
my tank. When I get a bigger tank I may try some again.