Rummy Nose’s sure are active

[Magnum Man]

All 8 of the new rummy nose’s survived, so far out of this last group ( the previous group from a different supplier did not survive )
But these new 8 are tightly shoaled, and swimming from end to end of a 55 gallon tank… I have to believe they wouldn’t fare as well in a smaller/ shorter tank… thinking I could do a few more, and they sure are neat to watch

 

[10 Tanks]

Hello. Bravo! You're keeping even small fish in a large tank. I keep Buenos Aires Tetras. They're my favorite. Larger tanks are so much easier to keep and the fish have room to roam. Once your Tetras become accustomed to their new home and realize they don't need to fear anything in the tank they'll go their different ways. My Tetras are all over the place in the tank.

Enjoy your new fish!

10

 

[MuddyWaters]

it's interesting. I have some neons, some glowlights and ONE green fire tetra (only one left). He is and always has been the most fearless and curious fish in my little tank. I was thinking I was going to start with glowlight tetras in my new tank, but, because of the activity of the green fire tetras, I'm going to start with them. The glowlights are great, and they move around etc, but they love staying in the plants. I've got 8 of them, so it's a nice little group. They're not stressed, they just hang in the plants.

I want a group of small fish that will get curious and swim around in open water- I think the green fire (based on experience thus far) will be the ones for me.

Is there a "book" on the disposition of the smaller tetras? I naively thought they'd all act the same, but it appears that's not the case.

 

[Magnum Man]

I read somewhere that the rummy’s are tight shoalers, I also have 6 pristella’s in the same tank, they are more independent… sometimes shoal with the rummy’s, sometimes shoal by themselves, sometimes swimming around independently

 

[10 Tanks]

Hello again. Tetras are schooling fish. But, that's some defense thing they start with to appear larger to a predatory fish. They'll mimic the movement of one and apparently, that makes the group look like one, large fish. I did notice this with my Buenos Aires Tetras and they're a fairly large species. After they made a few trips around the tank in a tight group and realized there were no large, potentially threatening fish in the tank, they relaxed and swam individually. I keep quite a few of these Tetras in my tanks and there's a lot of activity, each one going a different direction.

10

 

[GaryE]

Silver bodied tetras are more likely to shoal than other colours. They use sunlight and the surface of the water as camouflage. I've seen rummy nose species in underwater video, and they seem to cruise in groups of maybe 50-100, not in massive shoals. In the vids, shot by a friend, they are upper midwater, but look like they run to the surface if there's a threat. In the dappled sun, silver is hard to see.

Shoaling is a means of confusing predators. Have you ever tried to net a fish, and then had them get away because others appeared and made you hesitate for a split second? Every pet shop worker knows how shoalers confuse the eye.

In those same wild underwater vids though, many silvery tetras seem to mill about in enormous numbers, not shoaling or schooling but making getting eaten less likely because of their sheer numbers. One fish can be tracked and predated. 2000 are like a buffet with everything you could want - hard to make a split second decision on.

The smaller, blunt shaped tetras like glowlights or neons have colour, and their world is the bottom half of the tank. Their safety is plants and wood - traditional hiding places. They will spread out like a herd of mammals, and forage while keeping an eye on each other.

A variation is the high bodied serpae type - not built for current running, and very set on holding turf along the bottom in loose, herdlike groups.

So look to body shape and body colour. If it is dark, it likes the shade lower down. If it is silver and built like a torpedo, it will shoal a little more. We're spoiled by documentaries on marine schooling fish, and we want that in our tanks. We won't get it. Maybe if you have an enormous 1000 gallon tank, you could get some tetras to shoal, if you had some fish that acted predatory too.

I just looked out my early morning front window, and a group of the ever present whitetail deer we are surrounded by passed in clouds of their own breath, moving through the trees in front of my house in the exact formation my cardinals will move through the Vallisneria in. I may want to see 3000 caribou moving like they do in documentaries, but my local hoofed ungulates have no reason to shoal.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

Schooling is a defensive behavior but it has nothing to do with looking bigger. it has to do with making it very hard for the predator to home in a single fish. I have kept 65 cadinals in a 75. I have kept 20 rummy nose as well. They meander rather than school unless I add ****** fish to the tank, I used SAEs which would not eat the tetras but are large enough to make them think they should school.

Today I have 75 that seems to have morephed into a place for excess plants and an assortment of smaller fish- 12 kerri tetras, a few rummies and 3 of something I got so long ago I forgot what they are. There are also 11 corys- 6 LF paleatus and 5 albino aeneus. Most of those fish are all over the tank as the only other inhabitants are amano shrmp.

 

[MuddyWaters]

Silver bodied tetras are more likely to shoal than other colours. They use sunlight and the surface of the water as camouflage. I've seen rummy nose species in underwater video, and they seem to cruise in groups of maybe 50-100, not in massive shoals. In the vids, shot by a friend, they are upper midwater, but look like they run to the surface if there's a threat. In the dappled sun, silver is hard to see.

Shoaling is a means of confusing predators. Have you ever tried to net a fish, and then had them get away because others appeared and made you hesitate for a split second? Every pet shop worker knows how shoalers confuse the eye.

In those same wild underwater vids though, many silvery tetras seem to mill about in enormous numbers, not shoaling or schooling but making getting eaten less likely because of their sheer numbers. One fish can be tracked and predated. 2000 are like a buffet with everything you could want - hard to make a split second decision on.

The smaller, blunt shaped tetras like glowlights or neons have colour, and their world is the bottom half of the tank. Their safety is plants and wood - traditional hiding places. They will spread out like a herd of mammals, and forage while keeping an eye on each other.

A variation is the high bodied serpae type - not built for current running, and very set on holding turf along the bottom in loose, herdlike groups.

So look to body shape and body colour. If it is dark, it likes the shade lower down. If it is silver and built like a torpedo, it will shoal a little more. We're spoiled by documentaries on marine schooling fish, and we want that in our tanks. We won't get it. Maybe if you have an enormous 1000 gallon tank, you could get some tetras to shoal, if you had some fish that acted predatory too.

I just looked out my early morning front window, and a group of the ever present whitetail deer we are surrounded by passed in clouds of their own breath, moving through the trees in front of my house in the exact formation my cardinals will move through the Vallisneria in. I may want to see 3000 caribou moving like they do in documentaries, but my local hoofed ungulates have no reason to shoal.

Thanks, GaryE- that makes a lot of sense and jives with what I see in the tank- the green fire tetra is more silvery and is very comfortable in the middle to top. The glowlights and neons will swim around, but between leaves etc., staying closer to the bottom. Of course, if I feed them, they'll come out, but the neons tend to wait for the flow to blow some down their way lol. The glowlights will half go to the top and half stay toward the bottom with the neons, but the green fire is always at the top for feeding and is the first to notice food.

Interesting points on the body-type and their methods of avoiding danger- thanks!!

 

[GaryE]

I am fascinated by fish behaviour and the body shapes that support it. I find it really engrossing to try to understand what is going on. It's something we miss with too small tanks and overcrowding, and something we erase with glofish technology or line bred bodies. We wipe all the clues off the fish.

 

[MuddyWaters]

I am fascinated by fish behaviour and the body shapes that support it. I find it really engrossing to try to understand what is going on. It's something we miss with too small tanks and overcrowding, and something we erase with glofish technology or line bred bodies. We wipe all the clues off the fish.

GaryE, do you have a list of favorite books on aquarium fish? I'm not down for straight-up technical papers, but something a little more "common man" style with some serious good info (not just fluff) would be right up my alley.

 

[GaryE]

GaryE, do you have a list of favorite books on aquarium fish? I'm not down for straight-up technical papers, but something a little more "common man" style with some serious good info (not just fluff) would be right up my alley.

Everything seems out of print, but if you can look second hand, the best by far are the the 3 volumes of the Baensch series. They can be found in paperback. Book one, like the whole series one page per species, is on the more common stuff. Book 2 - sometimes common now, but new in the hobby back then, Book 3 is the 'wow I wish I could get that', with a lot of it possible now.

Some of the scientific info is now dated, and new species were introduced f=after it was written, but that's the best. Online, Seriously Fish is building something good, but as always online, you find what you already know to ask about. Baensch opens possibilities. Anyone serious about fish should have it.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

I only own a very few fish books, The Baensch Aquarium Atlas was my first one and I got it in hard cover. Many of the fish I ultimately procured over the years was because I was first introduced to then in the Atlas- zebra plecos and Betta imbellis were two of my favorites and I eventually got both and had them spawn. I still have a coiple of the zebras I got in 2006 as proven breeders. After 3 generations of the imbellis, I lost them.

 

[Naughts]

I was advised (@Byron I think) to do 20 rummynose and have no regrets.

 

[Byron]

I was advised (@Byron I think) to do 20 rummynose and have no regrets.

Twenty is a decent number for this characin (Petitella bleheri, P. georgiae, or the almost never-seen P. rhodostomus). I have been down to twelve in a smaller tank (a 3-foot 40g, I would never go smaller with this fish) but had 21 in the five=foot and four-foot tanks and they were a sight.