Watch your fingers

[CassCats]

I don't think this is what Seriously Fish meant when they said these fish are known to be nippy



(Aphyocharax rathbuni-- redflank bloodfin tetra, greenfire tetra, rathbun's tetra)

 

[fishorama]

Maybe you taste or smell like fish food? That's sort of how I taught my little juvenile discus to hand feed. LOL, but I actually had food between my fingers.

 

[CassCats]

Maybe you taste or smell like fish food? That's sort of how I taught my little juvenile discus to hand feed. LOL, but I actually had food between my fingers.

Nah, hands were cleaned and dried before touching the tank. They're just expecting me to feed them because it was the time of day I normally feed them at. Fish can tell time based off their stomach

 

[GaryE]

A lot of the little fish will act as cleaner fish and pick off dry skin. I've had tetras do that in streams, and it's an uncomfortable sensation when they work over your legs and feet. Don't stand in your tank to test it out, but they do see us as possible protein sources.

It's what spas exploit for those unfortunate Garra rufa.

I like rathbuni tetras. They need good shoals and moving water or they do nip, but when they're happy, they're just boisterous little disturbers.

I used to have an elderly dog who had very little energy left. She liked to walk into the shallows and lie down in a few cm of summertime lake water, smiling at the world. Shoals of little Fundulus diaphanous killifish would rush in and work over her underwater fur. It was a perfect world image - an old dog and some killies!

 

[Rusty_Shackleford]

I have a shoal of A. rathbuni. I'm gonna try that today just for fun. I should get a few more as my school is female heavy (3.9) I've never seen any nipping or aggression other than one male chasing off another one briefly.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

Have you considered the possibility that they were not nipping. Rather, they were so happy to be in one of your tanks that they were actually kissing your fingers?

From what I have read that to get fish to eat dead skin from people that the fish must first be starved otherwise they will not do this. Since I'd bet dollars to flakes that you do not starve your fish, I am going with the alternative explanation.

 

[Back in the fold]

That’s very cool !

 

[Rusty_Shackleford]

My mind works in weird ways. I can't help that this A. rathbuni cleaning station reminds me of this classic SNL sketch.