Should I Give Away My Rummynose Tetras?

[Primous]

My planted tank has developed a weird stocking rivalry. Until two months ago I had silvertip, rummynose, and jelly bean tetras living in the community without issue. However, roughly two months ago both the jelly bean and silvertip reached breeding maturity and have quite violent fights while in breeding mode and neither tetra tolerate the rummynose anywhere near their breeding area for most of the day.

My rummynose tetras nolonger school until about an hour before the lights go out/when the other tetras have worn themselves out. During the day the rummynose are forced to sit in a shaded area under my anubias. About a week ago I noticed one of the rummynose had white spot. I removed it and treated it in a quarantine tank a few days after that It was joined by another rummnose that developed white spot. In total I treated the main aquarium for one day even though the other fish were fine and my params where unchanged and the rummynoses in the quarantine for 4 days.

I don't think the situation is going to change. the Rummynose are most happy when they are schooling andbeing made to stay in one area is stressing them to the point where they get sick. Should I rehome them?

This is where they are forced to be for 7-7 1/2 hours a day

 

[KittyKat]

Probably, list you full set up and stocking details please. Whitespot, and other diseases, can be triggered by stress.

 

[Primous]

Probably, list you full set up and stocking details please. Whitespot, and other diseases, can be triggered by stress.

My stocking is as follows...

3 Juli cory
2 Honey gourami
5 Silver tip tetras
5 Jelly bean tetras
6 Rummynose tetra
2 Apisto borellii

My ammonia and nitrate and nitrite have been a 0ppm consistently (I check using nutrafin liquid test kit randomly once a week) which is the reason why I only treated the tank with one dosage of esha and focused on treating the sick rummynose tetras.

 

[Dan-CR4]

I love my rummnose, and they are wonderful when the shoal together. if you are thinking keeping them is stressful for them, then maybe it would be best to rehome them.

 

[KittyKat]

Probably, list you full set up and stocking details please. Whitespot, and other diseases, can be triggered by stress.

My stocking is as follows […]

And set-up details? Like dimensions, décor, etc. Going by your stocking, you problem is most likely caused by the lack of proper schools. I consider 6 to be an absolute minimum for a shoal (or school) and 10-15+ to be a realistic minimum. Most shoaling fish live in groups of a few hundred to a few million individuals, so as you can imagine, the more the merrier. One of the side effects of a shoal which is too small is aggression towards other species, especially nipping and harassment.

Our of your list, the Corys and the tetras are shoaling species, and the honeys are a social species (so I recommend that you keep 1m 3-5f). The Apistogramma are fine as they are as borellii are one of the pair species (assuming you have 1m 1f).

My ammonia and nitrate and nitrite have been a 0ppm consistently (I check using nutrafin liquid test kit randomly once a week) which is the reason why I only treated the tank with one dosage of esha and focused on treating the sick rummynose tetras.

The problem with whitespot is that the fish can't *really* fight it off on their own and at the most dangerous stage, the parasites are in the water and not visible, not on the fish.

 

[Primous]

I have a planted 180. The rummynose were living in complete harmony with the rest of the tank *until* the other tetras hit breeding maturity two months back. The other fish are too which is the reason why I didn't treat the tank with a full course of whitespot treatment. Because despite knowing the white spot parasite would be floating in the water, the fish have to be stressed in someway or have a poor immune system to be susceptible.

The minimum amount of tetras you can keep is 5-6 depending on the species and while I could do with another cory the 3 I have play about so much that they don't seem to mind.

 

[KittyKat]

The minimum amount of tetras you can keep is 5-6 depending on the species and while I could do with another cory the 3 I have play about so much that they don't seem to mind.

Please explain how your fish told you that

The minimum number of tetras I can keep is 10, not 5-6, because that is what, in my experience, is best for the fish. I consider the absolute minimum number of any shoaling fish that anyone should keep to be 6 because that is the point where I feel that fish go from "1", "2", "3", …, to "many". "Many" is the point where the fish *start* to behave more naturally, and a bigger "many" is where they do behave naturally.

Tetras are naturally not aggressive or territorial. If there are not enough of their own kind to keep themselves entertained, they will bother other species. This is clearly seen in tiger barbs and does show in almost every other shoaling species to a lesser extent: baby tiger barbs are also relatively peaceful, until they become sexually mature and start looking for mates.

 

[Primous]

The minimum number of tetras I can keep is 10, not 5-6, because that is what, in my experience,

Tetras are naturally not aggressive or territorial.

Yes "in your experience" that may be true but I'm sure your you can appreciate the fact that my experience may differ to yours. Every tetra I have kept gets aggressive to it's own species during breeding. Including the rummynose. The most violent tetra I have ever kept is the diamond tetra and I say violent and stress violent because they would kill each other over breeding rights and alpha male status. And I have always kept numbers of 5-6. In fact here's a vid I made of my diamonds a while back. Diamonds who fought each other until their fins/skirts were torn & battered or their rival was dead something which I noted back then in the vid.



I had an chat with some of the guys from tpt and they suggested that that the issue was not tetra numbers but in fact the tetra shape. The silvertip, jellybean, and rummynose tetra are all of the same shape so they suggest that they may recognize each other as a threat over the breeding area (moss & brazilian micros sword area) So What I'm planning to do is to rehouse the jelly bean and silvertip, buy a few more rummynose, and get a tetra species of the other shape to replace the 10 im going to rehome.

By "other shape" I mean the two different shapes 98% of tetras have

long

Bow

 

[KittyKat]

Yes "in your experience" that may be true but I'm sure your you can appreciate the fact that my experience may differ to yours. Every tetra I have kept gets aggressive to it's own species during breeding. Including the rummynose. The most violent tetra I have ever kept is the diamond tetra and I say violent and stress violent because they would kill each other over breeding rights and alpha male status. And I have always kept numbers of 5-6. In fact here's a vid I made of my diamonds a while back. Diamonds who fought each other until their fins/skirts were torn & battered or their rival was dead something which I noted back then in the vid.

Of course it does, but in this case it sounds to me like you have no point of comparison for behaviour. If you have always kept shoaling fish in small numbers, how can you say that this is not the problem?
As for the con-specific harassment, if a dominant male has only one other male to harass, do you think that one other male will not suffer more than if the dominant male has five males to split the aggression between? In the first case, the sub-dominant fish will receive 100% of the harassment, but in the second, only 20% of the harassment.

I have a planted 180.

A 180 (litre? gallon? cm? inch?) aquarium can look like anything from a column aquarium to a 5 ft long tank, which is why I was specifically asking for dimensions. It probably does not matter any more as you will reduce the number of species anyway…

Because despite knowing the white spot parasite would be floating in the water, the fish have to be stressed in someway or have a poor immune system to be susceptible.

…or for the whitespot concentrations to be higher than normal, which is what happens when it reaches the theront stage after dropping off.

 

[Primous]

I've kept several types of species of tetra from green neons to lemon tetras and in total I had 3 tanks but scaled back to just the 180 liter because of time constraints. Every tetra I have kept never starts out boisterous and I have never know what the ratio of M/F is until they reach breeding maturity where the female fattens up and the males go at it. I have always considered aggressive breeding behavior to be a sign of good health of a planted tank but perhaps thats just me.

As for the con-specific harassment, if a dominant male has only one other male to harass, do you think that one other male will not suffer more than if the dominant male has five males to split the aggression between? In the first case, the sub-dominant fish will receive 100% of the harassment, but in the second, only 20% of the harassment.

The *aggression by percentages* in "my aquarium," isn't a factor for the following reason. The dominant male of every species I've kept guards a specific planted area. He hovers over that area and spawns with the females who dash in and back out again. The other males see this and do one of two things. Wait until they mature enough to challenge the dominant male or challenge the dominant male.

I have tried adding similar areas to spread the aggression and allow the other males to mate but crucially, the females are all drawn to either the dominant male or that one specific planted area (I suspect it's the dominant male.) To me, tetras in a planted tank have almost the same dynamic as a wolf pack when it comes to breeding. One alpha male that runs the pack. At least, that's what I have observed.

*Edit*

Aquarium dimensions are 92 x 41 x 55 cm