Congo Tetra schooling

WateryWorld

WateryWorld

Girl out of water
Oct 27, 2008
150
0
0
Louisville KY
I have a male. He seems well settled. I am sure he would like to have more of his own kind around. If I could find females, I am thinking of having in total 4f and 2m because it's probably ideal without going overboard and getting lots. I guess the female will still look pretty good. What if I can't find 4f's though, I could either just get 1m for now (so the current one isn't alone) and get the f's later? Or 3f/3m, 2f/4m okay? (Those sound better to me but prob not as good for the fish.) Or just get all males (5 or 6 total)?
 
WateryWorld said:
I have a male. He seems well settled. I am sure he would like to have more of his own kind around. If I could find females, I am thinking of having in total 4f and 2m because it's probably ideal without going overboard and getting lots. I guess the female will still look pretty good. What if I can't find 4f's though, I could either just get 1m for now (so the current one isn't alone) and get the f's later? Or 3f/3m, 2f/4m okay? (Those sound better to me but prob not as good for the fish.) Or just get all males (5 or 6 total)?
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What size tank? Congo's get big for tetras.
 
125 gal. Online it said they get to 3.5" so six is 21" total. I might get only five.
 
Nice. Plenty of space. Depending on what else you have in the tank a nice size school of 8 would be ideal. Congos love long tanks :)
 
I don't think the male female ratio is a big deal. I have just one female and three males and the guys do not harrass the girl. In fact she swims by herself most of the time.
I would probably try for equal numbers of each for symetry if nothing else but my three males did fine before I added the female so you could just go with all males if need be. They are quite a bit larger and much prettier by the way.
 
Ok, great, thank you. I guess that if the Congo Tetra in the store resembles mine, even if it's duller and smaller, then it's male. The store ones are younger, and I would expect them to not be as colorful due to being cramped, etc.
 
The males get bigger and are more colorful than the females. If your looking for fry, I'd definitely keep more females than males. On male Congos you will notice the center part of the caudal fin are elongated. The males dorsal fin also extends all the way back to the caudal fin.
 
I read online that breeding them was tricky. So I figured that unless I put in effort to give them special conditions, probably in a different tank, it wouldn't happen...? It'd be nice, maybe I would try it some day.
 
I have 7 congo tetras in my 75 gallon, 4 males and 3 females. No problems with that ratio, and I can't imagine there would be any problems even if they were all male.
 
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