55 Gallon River Setup

He does look less than great. Does he graze on the sticks or plants? My wood grazers never seemed to like mopani very much, is that what he's on? & your rocks look pretty "clean". Could be he's low fish in the pecking order, does he get pushed around? You'd probably notice if there was lights out fighting. Maybe too much cory activity for him?

Your extra cute paleatus girl looks like she's posing!
 
fishorama said:
He does look less than great. Does he graze on the sticks or plants? My wood grazers never seemed to like mopani very much, is that what he's on? & your rocks look pretty "clean". Could be he's low fish in the pecking order, does he get pushed around? You'd probably notice if there was lights out fighting. Maybe too much cory activity for him?

Your extra cute paleatus girl looks like she's posing!
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They've been cleaning up the biofilm and diatoms, but I've not seen him eat anything at all aside from that. I think this may be a case of this fish not adapting to captive foods, but he's not emaciated, just a little on the thin side, so shall see if it improves.

I've pulled rocks from another tank for extra biofilm and added some botanicals for some extra grazing as well for him. He sticks to the wood, rocks, or glass. Never on the plants. I only ever see chasing if he goes into one of the other caves on accident, but that's about as "fight-y" as it gets.
 
So, picked up those vals from my friend. A whole 48 of them.

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And, released the savages from QT. They ate the skinny ones, but 11 have made it to the tank.

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The small dude with the nipped dorsal fin, he's the instigator of the attitude I'm noticing, the boss boy. I've named him Grinch.

And both new corydoras too. Which... is hilarious. They were totally normal when I bought both, small babies. Nothing out of the ordinary. Out of QT? One developed long fins! I accidentally ended up with one longfin corydoras 🙃
I've named him Oops.

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It's funny because I was avoiding albino Columbian tetras because I wanted natural looking fish for this tank.

And still, end up with ONE unnatural fish. The irony.
 
Loving these savages. They're really lovely in the tank. Though, noticed now out of QT, most of these fish lack the white stripe on the caudal fin that true red eyes (Moenkhausia sanctaefilomenae) have, meaning there's a chance they may also be one of the lookalikes (Moenkhausia oligolepis)

Screenshots from fishbase.

Moenkhausia oligolepis lacks the white bar inside the tail fin, has a yellower caudal spot. Noticing they also more consistently have reddish dorsal fins, though some pics red eyes do too. Another thing is the faint dark smudge behind the gill.
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Moenkhausia sanctaefilomenae is more common, has a white bar inside the tail fin and brighter white caudal spot.
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No white bar
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A dark smudge behind the gill
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I need to study & think about your very similar tetra species. As we know, some photos are better than others...& just because they're online doesn't mean they're correctly identified. I hope it doesn't come down to counting fins rays, lol! That's never going to be 1 of my skill sets but lighting can change their look too. I'm pretty sure neither naponis & sanctaemenofilae? are not your fish unless, of course, they're mis-IDed. Is there a "planet tetra" as there is a planetcatfish? I've never run across it if there is...but I likely wouldn't have gone there if so. I'm always willing to learn, let us know what you find out.
 
fishorama said:
I need to study & think about your very similar tetra species. As we know, some photos are better than others...& just because they're online doesn't mean they're correctly identified. I hope it doesn't come down to counting fins rays, lol! That's never going to be 1 of my skill sets but lighting can change their look too. I'm pretty sure neither naponis & sanctaemenofilae? are not your fish unless, of course, they're mis-IDed. Is there a "planet tetra" as there is a planetcatfish? I've never run across it if there is...but I likely wouldn't have gone there if so. I'm always willing to learn, let us know what you find out.
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Browsed the entire genus on fishbase lol

Moenkhausia sanctaefilomenae is the "red eye tetra" that mine were purchased as.

Mind you I can wait until full grown. "Red eyes" get 7cm while "glassy" get 10cm lol 3cm isn't a huge difference, both get pretty large.

Fish Identification

fishbase.mnhn.fr

Surprisingly a nice genus though, some really beautiful fish in this genus, and most not even really in the trade. What a shame!
 
fishorama said:
I need to study & think about your very similar tetra species. As we know, some photos are better than others...& just because they're online doesn't mean they're correctly identified. I hope it doesn't come down to counting fins rays, lol! That's never going to be 1 of my skill sets but lighting can change their look too. I'm pretty sure neither naponis & sanctaemenofilae? are not your fish unless, of course, they're mis-IDed. Is there a "planet tetra" as there is a planetcatfish? I've never run across it if there is...but I likely wouldn't have gone there if so. I'm always willing to learn, let us know what you find out.
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I'm currently in a deep dive of this, found a research paper. Seems m. australis is another contender but this paper goes in depth on these species
 
Can rule out oligolepis based off the scale measurement compared to lateral lines

From the study
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My fish
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M. Australis is pretty dang close visually too, more than red eye m
 
Further diagnostics, m. australis is distinguished from m. sanctaefilomenae by having 5/5 transversal scales from the lateral line vs 4/4 transversal scales on m. sanctaefilomenae.

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Counting on my fish, 5/5
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So these very well may be m. australis instead of either of the other two.
 
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