Need Advise for Aggressive High Fin Tetra

[BrooklynAngel]

I'm new here, so.....Hi everyone :)

The issue that brought me here is a very old high fin tetra that has become very aggressive. I started out with him and many others of his kind 3 years ago in a 10 gallon tank. I was a newbie then and lost several to newbie mistakes. This past Christmas I upgraded my tank to 29g and moved the HF Tetra along with 2 surviving red-eyed tetras into the larger tank with an algea eater. Cycling complete after 3 weeks I began my plan of adding 1-2 fish per week to populate my tank. I added two female bettas (who antagonize but don't harm each other) and then decided to go on to more community fish.

Here's where the problems started......

I am fond of the colors and tail patterns of guppies, so I purchased 2 males and placed them in the tank. Within 5 minuted the HF tetra has partially shredded on guppies tail. I immediately removed them and placed them in a quarantine tank and gave them away.
I tried again with another HF tetra, thinking that because he's a schooling fish he might be lonely.....nope....same behavior as before. The new HF tetra lasted only 2 hours before I had to remove him and treat his fin damage.

I thought, OK.....i've got a renegade on my hands. So, I bought 2 medium Angels. These angels are the most docile angels I've ever seen!!! The HF is nipping at one of their tails and niether of them do anytihng about it. The entire tank lives in fear of this large and grumpy High Fin Tetra....

I don't know what to do. This fish is old, tough, and cranky. He recently survived a bout of ICh in which he lost most ofhis fins. They have nearly completely grown back, but the illness seems to only have made his mood worse.

WHAT DO I DO? Add a shark? LOL.

[Koi-Lo]

"BrooklynAngel" > wrote in
message om...
>
> I'm new here, so.....Hi everyone :)

Hi! Welcome to our fishy little group. :-))

> Here's where the problems started......
> I don't know what to do. This fish is old, tough, and cranky. He
> recently survived a bout of ICh in which he lost most ofhis fins. They
> have nearly completely grown back, but the illness seems to only have
> made his mood worse.
>
> WHAT DO I DO? Add a shark? LOL.

If this were my fish I would give HIM away! Sometimes these aggressive
fish aren't worth keeping. Or put HIM in a quarantine or hospital tank
where he can't harm other fish if you can't bear to part with him.
--
Koi-Lo.... frugal ponding since 1995...
Aquariums since 1952
My Pond & Aquarium Pages:
http://tinyurl.com/9do58
~~~ }<((((o> ~~~ }<{{{{o> ~~~ }<(((((o>




..

[Gill Passman]

Koi-Lo wrote:
>
> "BrooklynAngel" > wrote
> in message om...
>
>>
>> I'm new here, so.....Hi everyone :)
>
>
> Hi! Welcome to our fishy little group. :-))
>
>> Here's where the problems started......
>> I don't know what to do. This fish is old, tough, and cranky. He
>> recently survived a bout of ICh in which he lost most ofhis fins. They
>> have nearly completely grown back, but the illness seems to only have
>> made his mood worse.
>>
>> WHAT DO I DO? Add a shark? LOL.
>
>
> If this were my fish I would give HIM away! Sometimes these aggressive
> fish aren't worth keeping. Or put HIM in a quarantine or hospital tank
> where he can't harm other fish if you can't bear to part with him.

Yep, I would be inclined to QT him for a while or alternatively when you
add more fish switch around some of the decor and plants so that he has
to re-establish his territory...I know how fond we can all get of our
fish...I have a particularly nasty Mbuna who is a pussy cat around me
but a total sh*t to the other fish and however logic dictates I could
not even consider getting rid of him...can't tell you the exact name -
he's been reclassified again according to this months PFK....

Just my penny worth
Gill

[Richard Sexton]

Piranas are large tetras, or one way to look at it is, tetras
are small piranas, but less agressive.

Small tetras like neons go ok with guppies - usually, but
if yo told me your neons shredded your guppies I'd say
"figures".

So you need to split them up or lose one of the other of
the two species. Or, saaaaaaaay, how bout another tank?

Just because you have two tanks doesn't mean you'l keep
adding tank after tank after tank... (looks around)

Sure. Riiiiiiiight.


--
Need Mercedes parts ? - http://parts.mbz.org
Richard Sexton | Mercedes stuff: http://mbz.org
1970 280SE, 72 280SE | Home page: http://rs79.vrx.net
633CSi 250SE/C 300SD | http://aquaria.net http://killi.net

[Altum]

BrooklynAngel wrote:
> I'm new here, so.....Hi everyone :)
>
> The issue that brought me here is a very old high fin tetra that has
> become very aggressive. I started out with him and many others of his
> kind 3 years ago in a 10 gallon tank. I was a newbie then and lost
> several to newbie mistakes. This past Christmas I upgraded my tank to
> 29g and moved the HF Tetra along with 2 surviving red-eyed tetras into
> the larger tank with an algea eater. Cycling complete after 3 weeks I
> began my plan of adding 1-2 fish per week to populate my tank. I added
> two female bettas (who antagonize but don't harm each other) and then
> decided to go on to more community fish.
>
<snip>

I assume by high fin, you mean a long fin variety of Gymnocorymbus
ternetzi. I've kept black skirt tetras before, but never in a group
smaller than five. If I were you, I would add five of the largest high
fin (or normal black skirt) tetras I could find and hope your renegade
returns to more normal shoaling behavior.

[NetMax]

"Altum" > wrote in message
oups.com...
>
> BrooklynAngel wrote:
>> I'm new here, so.....Hi everyone :)
>>
>> The issue that brought me here is a very old high fin tetra that has
>> become very aggressive. I started out with him and many others of his
>> kind 3 years ago in a 10 gallon tank. I was a newbie then and lost
>> several to newbie mistakes. This past Christmas I upgraded my tank to
>> 29g and moved the HF Tetra along with 2 surviving red-eyed tetras into
>> the larger tank with an algea eater. Cycling complete after 3 weeks I
>> began my plan of adding 1-2 fish per week to populate my tank. I
>> added
>> two female bettas (who antagonize but don't harm each other) and then
>> decided to go on to more community fish.
>>
> <snip>
>
> I assume by high fin, you mean a long fin variety of Gymnocorymbus
> ternetzi. I've kept black skirt tetras before, but never in a group
> smaller than five. If I were you, I would add five of the largest high
> fin (or normal black skirt) tetras I could find and hope your renegade
> returns to more normal shoaling behavior.


Not-withstanding Richard's advice of more tanks, I would take Altum's
advice one step further. Quarantine the aggressive HF Black Skirt. Add
a shoal of new Black Skirt tetras to the tank (ie: 7) and let them settle
in for about 3 days. Now re-introduce the aggressive fish into the 29g.
If he wants to stay aggressive (and it probably is a 'he'), then he will
have to divide that aggression by 7 (who know their way around the tank).
You could further improve this plan by adding 3 or 4 more Red-Eye tetras
at the same time as the Black Skirts, and a piece of driftwood to swim
around. Chaos is a great leveller, as is diminishing returns (too many
fish to chase). This will all improve your odds. If it doesn't work,
upgrade to a 55g ;~).

Seriously, an option is always to bring him in to the LFS, where they
will sell him for too much, to an unprepared newbie who will be posted
here in a few weeks, and then you can give them your advice.
--
www.NetMax.tk

[BrooklynAngel]

Thanks for all the great info everyone. Sorry it took me overnight to get back with you all. I think that Quarantine-ing him would probably be the way to go. I have tried to find larger HF Testras to help him get back into the shoaling habit, but can't seem to find any...all the LFS has are the tiny ones.

I have been hesitant to add more tetras as I was wanting to cross over to a Chilids tank as the tetras died off.....they have a long life span though and are extremely hardy. (I am not the kind who can just get rid of fish)

Perhaps quarantine will calm him down. That's what i had to do with my female bettas (a few days ina small quarantine certainly changed their attitudes :)

Anywho...thanks for the assistance. I will update later on as to how my bully boy is doing :)

-BrooklynAngel

[Mr. Gardener]

On Thu, 23 Feb 2006 15:27:43 +0000, BrooklynAngel
> wrote:

>
>Thanks for all the great info everyone. Sorry it took me overnight to
>get back with you all. I think that Quarantine-ing him would probably
>be the way to go. I have tried to find larger HF Testras to help him
>get back into the shoaling habit, but can't seem to find any...all the
>LFS has are the tiny ones.

Yup. He needs to go in the time out room. Sit there and think about
his behavior for a couple of weeks before rejoining the rest of the
class.

-- Mr Gardener

[Richard Sexton]

In article >,
BrooklynAngel > wrote:
>
>Thanks for all the great info everyone. Sorry it took me overnight to
>get back with you all. I think that Quarantine-ing him would probably
>be the way to go. I have tried to find larger HF Testras to help him
>get back into the shoaling habit, but can't seem to find any...all the
>LFS has are the tiny ones.

I have at least onebook here tht says "agressive when older". If it
wee me I'd give it away to somebody that hada BIG display tank
andget some small ones.

Course, if it were I'dhave picked Emperor tetras instead :-)

(Nematobrycon palmeri, Netmatobrycon lacortei)

--
Need Mercedes parts ? - http://parts.mbz.org
Richard Sexton | Mercedes stuff: http://mbz.org
1970 280SE, 72 280SE | Home page: http://rs79.vrx.net
633CSi 250SE/C 300SD | http://aquaria.net http://killi.net

[Richard Sexton]

In article >,
Mr. Gardener > wrote:
>On Thu, 23 Feb 2006 15:27:43 +0000, BrooklynAngel
> wrote:
>
>>
>>Thanks for all the great info everyone. Sorry it took me overnight to
>>get back with you all. I think that Quarantine-ing him would probably
>>be the way to go. I have tried to find larger HF Testras to help him
>>get back into the shoaling habit, but can't seem to find any...all the
>>LFS has are the tiny ones.
>
>Yup. He needs to go in the time out room. Sit there and think about
>his behavior for a couple of weeks before rejoining the rest of the
>class.

Won't help.


--
Need Mercedes parts ? - http://parts.mbz.org
Richard Sexton | Mercedes stuff: http://mbz.org
1970 280SE, 72 280SE | Home page: http://rs79.vrx.net
633CSi 250SE/C 300SD | http://aquaria.net http://killi.net

[NetMax]

"Richard Sexton" > wrote in message
...
> In article >,
> BrooklynAngel > wrote:
>>
>>Thanks for all the great info everyone. Sorry it took me overnight to
>>get back with you all. I think that Quarantine-ing him would probably
>>be the way to go. I have tried to find larger HF Testras to help him
>>get back into the shoaling habit, but can't seem to find any...all the
>>LFS has are the tiny ones.
>
> I have at least onebook here tht says "agressive when older". If it
> wee me I'd give it away to somebody that hada BIG display tank
> andget some small ones.
>
> Course, if it were I'dhave picked Emperor tetras instead :-)
>
> (Nematobrycon palmeri, Netmatobrycon lacortei)

I've bred palmeri, but before you equate any proficiency on my part, I
should be quick to clarify that all I did was discover the fry, and by
then they were already a month old. Nice fish. Definitely an upgrade on
Neons.
--
www.NetMax.tk

> --
> Need Mercedes parts ? - http://parts.mbz.org
> Richard Sexton | Mercedes stuff: http://mbz.org
> 1970 280SE, 72 280SE | Home page: http://rs79.vrx.net
> 633CSi 250SE/C 300SD | http://aquaria.net http://killi.net

[BrooklynAngel]

Well, I have quarantined him, regardless of whether or not it might help the situation. If anything, at least the rest of the tank will have a break from his antics :) He seems very unhappy though in the smaller tank.....he's having social withdrawls!!! lol.

I really like him....strange becasue he is causing me so much angst. But, I only bought the HF tetras becasue someone told me they were te hardiest fish and I was sick of my fish dying! (that was during my horrible newbie and ignorant days!) So then I got stuck with these ugly little fish......

The red-eyes tetras have grown on me (I like their silvery textured appearance) but the HF meany that I have left has actually grown into a beautiful fish. His fins are nearly transparent and are long and flow-y like a bettas.

Anywho.....I really appreciate the advise and info.