Anyone got Buenos Aires tetras?

[Ratlova30]

Went to petsmart to get some filter media and managed to pull myself together enough to step away from the shelves of bettas but then I saw $1 stickers on a few of the fish tanks:goldfish::nono::goldfish:. Anyways ended up snagging 5 Buenos Aires tetras. I didn't do the research on these guys but generally I have an aquarium suitable for most fish I bring home. I'm actually going to be starting up a tank soon for nippy tetras, I want cave fish. The buenos are in QT right now and I started reading online about them and most of what I read said that their generally peaceful BUT something keeps telling me that these guys are nippy. So looking for someone with personal experience to give me some input. If they are nippy, are they aggressive enough to be put with cave fish. I know cave fish can be pretty nasty. Any help would be appreciated. Wish they weren't big plant eaters otherwise I would just throw them in my empty planted gourami tank.

Also are von rio tetras nippy, internet is saying their peaceful too.

 

[laurenrocksth]

I've had them in the past. They are definitely nippy. They also get fairly large (~4 inches?) so you want to have an adequately sized tank. Good luck with them. They sure are pretty

 

[Ratlova30]

Thanks, yeah they are pretty. I'll see how it goes in the nippy tetra tank. If things don't work out I can always try them in the barb tank(mainly has tiger/green barbs in it). Maybe I can plant the nippy tetra tank, I'll just fill it with java fern.

 

[platytudes]

Von rio aka flame tetras are very peaceful, I can't think of a more peaceful tetra except for maybe neons!

Buenos Aires tetras are thugs, they terrorized my rainbowfish, especially at feeding time when they would slam into them to get the pellets out of their mouth Barbs should be able to tolerate them.

Nippiest tetras IMO are serpaes and Buenos Aires tetras, many people say black skirts are nippy as well. Diamond tetras and bleeding hearts have been borderline nippy for me, never enough to create a problem. But since I have never had serpaes...Buenos Aires were my nippiest tetra experience!

 

[Ratlova30]

I keep hearing black skirts are nippy but I've never seen them go after my other fish, never ever had a problem with them, never had a problem with my diamonds either. Thanks for the tip about the von rios, they'll go into my peaceful tetra tank if I happen upon them. Yeah I knew in the back of my mind they were nippy despite what I kept reading something told me it was wrong. Gorgeous fish nonetheless.

 

[platytudes]

Yeah I knew in the back of my mind they were nippy despite what I kept reading something told me it was wrong.

There is actually a specialized kind of feeding, called lepidophagy, which is the eating of scales and fins...I know some Characins (the family that tetras belong to) feed this way, the same with certain puffers.

Just have to do all the research you can, and be prepared with a plan B if it doesn't work out I ended up moving my Buenos Aires tetras into my 55 gallon yellow lab tank...turns out they are great dither fish for African cichlids.

 

[cicrush13]

I used to work at petsmart and we had about 55 black skirts in 1 tank at a time. There would always be one that had a chunk missing from a fin or two. They are very nippy...Serpaes not as bad. In my experience I had Serpaes with 5 Angels and Black Neons and they rarely even chased each other. I was very lucky to have them be that well behaved.

 

[cicrush13]

There is actually a specialized kind of feeding, called lepidophagy, which is the eating of scales and fins...I know some Characins (the family that tetras belong to) feed this way, the same with certain puffers.

Just have to do all the research you can, and be prepared with a plan B if it doesn't work out I ended up moving my Buenos Aires tetras into my 55 gallon yellow lab tank...turns out they are great dither fish for African cichlids.

That is very true. I used to sell them as dither fish all the time for my chiclid customers.