Info on painted tetras

[zazz]

I need info on how to care for "painted tetras" ( I didnt buy them, i just have them) :huh:
What is the real name of the type of tetra they paint?
I never seem to have any luck using the species profile on this site. how would i find a similar type of tetra there? (I looked under W for whiteskirt, T for tetra..)The two I have have rather different shapes, one much deeper than the other, could that be a gender difference? I need to know basically everything about them. I think they like soft, warmish water (74F?) but thats about it. Do they want to school? how much room? how long they live...
Any help in how to find this info would be appreciated. Thanks!
~Zazz
oh~ anyone have a link to info on how they are colored? ~ Z

[Mocular]

they are a white version of blackskirt tetras so you care for them the same as them as for the dyeing part they are dipped in an acid bath to remove the slime coating then are eather dipped in dye or in the case of glassfish ingected with dye.

[snakeskinner]

depends on what they really are. I've never seen "painted tetras" before. there are whiteskirt tetras that are dyed and those are usually seen as "tropical fruit tetras" or simply "fruit tetras". Just go by regular whiteskirt tetra data and yes they are schooling. The other fish is the "painted glassfish" which isn't a tetra at all. Are your fish solid colored, look like they were washed in food coloring? Or are they clear with a bright stripe down their spine? I can't think where the glassfish fall in the books, I think usually in the perch family section but not sure. I believe they are normally fairly hardy but when injected rarely live very long at all. Kyle

[tbone]

how is it their poor little eyes dont get dyed? or do they?

[zazz]

stripe down the back. their eyes are black, so....
I may have made up that term myself,"painted tetras" the lady who had them called them " a pink one and a blue one."
They look like whiteskirt tetras. which, as far as i have been able to ascertain are basically the same as blackskirts. but for color.
these two and their tankmates were living in very crowded conditions. these little tetras seem to have come through it the best.! tough little buggers. no disease and no permanant damage that i can see. Id happily let them live their lives in my 10 gallon, but i'm wonderring how long that might be.

[Mako]

You may have a painted glassfish if one of them is relatively transluescent. Then again, you'd have mentioned it since it's a really striking characteristic.

Now my personal opinion is that local shops and major chains that offer these artificially dyed fish should be soaked in alkyd-based wood stain and then painted with polyeurethane, sanded up to 800 grit sandpaper, and waxed to a brilliant sheen. No offense to those who buy them, but please boycot them.

Otherwise, you sound like you're giving yours a nice home, keep them happy. They are a pretty resilient fish. You can keep them with black skirt tetras and they'll school with them. They can be nippy at times, like tiger barbs. Keeping them in schools (preferably of non-painted ones :sim: , either white or natural) will reduce nippiness.

pH pref, 6.5-7.2, not critical. Painted *glassfish* are technically a brackish fish and like a pH of 7.5-8.5 with some sea salt in the water. These are the real boycott items, as virtually nobody cares for them properly.

[zazz]

Now my personal opinion is that local shops and major chains that offer these artificially dyed fish should be soaked in alkyd-based wood stain and then painted with polyeurethane, sanded up to 800 grit sandpaper, and waxed to a brilliant sheen. No offense to those who buy them, but please boycot them.
This is a Lovely idea! This would make some really pretty fishsellers! I wonder if they'd breed true.... :idea: or maybe i could just buy them cheap and sell em at a profit.. :rolleyes:

When I work up to it, I am going to call the store that sold these fish ( along with a lot of Bad advise) and register a polite complaint. I got these fish from a woman who was giving them away. They came with an angelfish, a fancygf and a cory cat all in their 5 gallon tank. she'd been buying her fish etc at the same place for ten years!
I guess that there will be stores to sell them as long as it is profitable. I hope fewer people would buy them if they understood how they were colored, and its results.
I thought there was an article online about that somewhere but I can't find it. anyone have a link? I'd like to be able to pass it along.
ANYWAY ~ Thank you for the info, mako! I am sure, by now, that these are tetras, not glassfish, one is just much smaller,maybe younger, than the other.
Anyone know how long the live can live? or, how long 'normal' blackskirts live?I know there are so many variables, but are we talking 3 months? or 3 years? or...?

[ashdavid]

Zazz if they are painted tetra's I wouldn't hold to much hope for them. I can not tell you how long they will live for, some may live quite a long time( in painted tetra life span's) or they may only live a few more days. The problem with these fish is that their body has been severly compromised by the painting process, I heard somewhere that the ones that make it to your lfs numbers only 20% of those that have undergone this treatment. I dont know if they are in pain or what, but it may even be more humane to euthanize them, this maybe up for debate . I dont know the answer, so just look after them the way you would a normal tetra.

[zazz]

Thank you, ashdavid!

Since they are showing no signs of distress,(I've looked carefully) I will keep them in the nicest conditions possible.
I never intended to get into keeping tetras, but now that they are here, I wanted to know how long I should expect to have to accomodate them.
I have no idea how long ago they came from the fishstore, but it sounds like we are talking short term in any case.
~ Zazz

[judgemax]

i personally have a white skirt tetra their body shape is similarto the black skirt butthe fins are different ...i have seen several shapes as well some have a deeper drop in their forehead and others tend to round out ...mine was labeled a berry tetra and purchased before i knew that it wasnt right...so please no comments on that ...however it has now lived happily in my tanks as a white skirt tetra for almost two years now ..i may have been lucky that it is still alive but as for schooling he like to school with my three black skirts ..and yes they can get nippy sometimes it seems like all they do is chase eachother but they show no fin damage this particular fish its name is diane has been in my tanks since it was about the size of a dime and is now full grown at a little larger than a fifty cent peice ...i do agree i would not purcghase them and will not condone puchasing them but give it a good life and you will have a beutiful speciman once the fake color has faded

[zazz]

Interesting, judgemax.
The larger of my two is the size of a quarter. and mostly faded. very pretty little fish, actually. (But i dont know if thats scarred scales im looking at or what)
I wish I knew a lfs here that I trusted, then I could just keep them untill they were both white again ( if they last) and give them to the lfs so they could get into a bigger school.
As it is, I guess I'd better not plan on any tankmates for the ten gallon that are potentially incompatible with them... Unless you have room for them judge! :)

[Sigundo]

A pet store that just opened here has both the painted glassfish and painted tetras. When I first looked at the store (I'm just starting a tank now), I saw the glassfish and tetras and said "ooh... I gotta have those". My tank has cycled well, I have plants that are about a week old (well, I planted them a week ago, you know what I mean), and a couple of platies and another fish that I dont know what it is.. just silver with a black band on his tail, we call him "twitch".

Luckily, I looked into a nice database I found online that seems to take some input from other fish owners, and links to "compatible fish" at the bottom of the description, and found out that even though they are compatible, the painted look is artificial, so I won't buy them (even though they do look nice, if only it was natural). We ended up buying some Angelfish (though I DID want some neon tetras, and a betta but from what I read, buying some will just give me slightly larger Angelfish) and I read that bettas and Angelfish won't get along.

Good luck with those tetras, even though I don't support painting fish for sales, since you were given them, it sounds like you are trying to give them a good home, which is really what they deserve after what they've been put through by the company that painted them.

[dorkfish]

sigundo, why would'nt an angel and a betta get along? based on thier ecological niches (what they do in nature) and thier sizes, I see no reson for this, and I doubt that angels are nippy.

[rosita]

Keeping with the topic of painted fish but changing species, has anyone ever heard of painted blood parrot fish? Or can they come in a variety of pastel colors? I went in a nonlocal fish store and saw a group of these--the employee was a young kid and didn't know much, couldn't answer my questions. ????? :confused:

[fishyaddict]

here's the site your looking for

http://www.deathbydyeing.org/