Fish Id please

[zoalover34]

My wife's sister just dropped these off and I don't know what they are.. They took down their tank and didn't know what to do with em so we took em in..

The silver w/ black stripes

 

[jingles]

Short Finned Red Minor Serpae Tetra. and a black shirt tetra..

 

[DesignsOnYou]

The second one is a black skirt tetra. jingles - I figured this was a type-o, but if the OP has no idea what he's looking for I thought it would help if he had the actual name. Just clarifying.

 

[Violet]

Well that was easy, lol. Both beautiful and excellent fish, I have them both. Make sure you read up on their shoaling needs and they are great!

 

[jingles]

yea it was a typo thank you for correcting me. I was just going to say Serpae's can be fin nippers so I'd be careful with the black shirt. Although I doubt it will be a problem just throwing it out there. The fewer the number of Serpae's you have the more aggressive they'll be (at least my were).

 

[DesignsOnYou]

No problem. You clearly knew what you were talking about, just trying to help out the OP. I could imagine an internet search and not being able to find anything about "black shirt tetras" haha. Also, as an interesting and possibly helpful side note. When I had black skirts they would faint when being netted. As in, when I went to net them they would go still, drop to the bottom, and then in a few seconds revive. It scared the crap out of me the first time, so it might be good to know before dealing with them. They are cool to watch. A nice shoaling fish.

 

[zoalover34]

The 2 Black skirts seem to do nothing but pick on each other all day lol.. First 1 will chase the other around then it will stop and be chased by the other.. They were in the same size tank as the tank I have now so I don't know if they are playing or what..

 

[DesignsOnYou]

They could be playing. They also might need a bigger shoal to establish some sort of order. I'm not sure on that part though. I know they're shoaling, but I'm not sure how necessary it is for that particular fish. I don't remember if mine chased each other or not.

 

[homebunnyj]

You will need a large school of black skirt tetras, assuming you have a big enough tank. I've never been able to have fewer than eight successfully; fewer and they pick on each other constantly. A larger school spreads the aggression around. And even with eight in my tank they tended to look like a ragged-tailed group of hoodlums from all the nipping. Twelve worked better. Darn black skirts; I got tired of them.

 

[misterking]

Yep I agree, I had a shoal of 10 as opposed to around 4 I had a few years earlier, they do much better. I've also had fin nipping problems with serpae tetras so I'd look out for that.