Question for those who had Blue Emperor Tetras?

[Backdraft Bagel]

This is in the past, but the question remains ...

I bought a small fleet (8) of Emperor Tetras and introduced them to my well established but recently vacated planted aquarium. I immediatly started having problems with their behavior. Despite all I read indicating that the ET's are peaceful fish, things were quite different. They were mean as hell! At first I thought maybe the big one was picking on the smaller males, but after only a few minutes, I could see that they were ALL getting rowdy with each other. Each morning I would wake to find a new dead fish, obviously died to a fight. Once, I witnessed the murder of one as well. They continued this self destructive behavior until there was only one beat up tetra left.

Putting that fish in a community tank was fine. It was well behaved.

What the heck? Why did my aquarium inhabitants implode?

I can say with absolute certianty that it was not environment or living conditions. I'm a freak perfectionist and sometimes I test my pH at random times during the day just to be sure.

Gotta be sure.
Gotta be clean.

Anyhow, I digress (again).

Has anyone else had behavioral problems with these guys?

 

[mike the zealot]

Re: Question for those who had Blue Emperor Tetras

strange that you ask this question today...

last night I had one of my red eye tetras die suddenly... one moment I was looking at my beautiful colony of assorted fish, the next I look to see a tetra floating around up top while my moonlight gourami took chunks out of his fins. My first casualty in my 3 week old hobby =(

I was wondering if he died due to

a) my tetras are somewhat rowdy amongst themselves
b) my moonlight gourami murdered him
c) I had just stirred up my gravel installing some driftwood and rearranging the plastic plants... maybe the shock of me doing so much excavation was too much for him... it was enough to make my opaline gourami turn really dark blue...

anyway I bought two more today to replace him...

 

[colesea]

Re: Question for those who had Blue Emperor Tetras

I have had red-eyed tetras drop dead suddenly for no reason, as Mike experienced. Usually I chalk it up to a really over-crowded tank and the tendacy for Red-eyed tetras to beat themselves senseless against the glass when suddenly startled. I have also figured it could be fighting stress from being crowded, or a case of disease in the system (when fish are over crowded, disease is always an issue).

But I have never seen Emperor Tetras kill each other off before from aggression.  I have noticed that they seem to get a wonderful form of Neon Tetra Disease that starts on their dorsal caudal peduncle and basically advances until it eats away their whole anterior end.  I have never been able to stop progression of this disease once a fish has gotten it (usually they arrive in my shop with it already), but I have been able to prevent it with a strong regiment of Rid-Ich.  Once you get Emperor Tetras through that first week critical period, they're indestructable.

But I have noticed that they are not your typical schooling tetra the way a Black Widow or Serpae might be. They all seem to space themselves out in the tank in their own individual "spot" kinda like how you see birds evenly spaced out on a telephone line. I have never witnessed them beat the crap out of each other or any other tankmates, but then again, I have never observed a tank of them long enough to see it.

Very interesting. I would say if he's happy by himself in a community tank, leave him there. I have a Green Tiger Barb who's all by himself because he killed off his four school-mates. Ah well.
~~Colesea