# Ember tetras-Species Only?



## James From Cali (Dec 15, 2006)

I was wondering if its best to keep ember tetras in species only tanks. The Local Petsmart started carrying them recently and I would love to get my hands on some of them but want to make the preparations. I did a search on the web and they said species tank recomended so want to clarify.

Thanks, James


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## Blue Ridge Reef (Feb 10, 2008)

I've kept them in community tanks with no problems. They aren't the most aggressive feeders, so I wouldn't put them giant danios, but they are pretty standard tetras overall.


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## James From Cali (Dec 15, 2006)

Yeah right now I have a betta, dwarf puffer, and black red tailed variatus. I was going to move the betta to a LavAquarium and put some duckweed in there for him but thE puffer may have to stay or be moved to my friends puffer tank. Never keeping them how many would be able to go into a 10g tank with an aquaclear20 and going to be denslery planted?


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## James From Cali (Dec 15, 2006)

Never Mind I can do about like 13 or so Tetra. Thanks.


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## MOsborne05 (Jan 7, 2007)

The only problem with keeping them with other species is their size, they are sooo tiny! They are much more prone to being eaten or starving to death because of their small size. I've got 10 of them in a 7 gallon with 2 galaxy rasboras and some cherry shrimp. I saw them at the lfs the one day and I had been looking for them forever, so they were an impulse buy. They are very active, and haven't bothered the cherry shrimp yet. They do eye them up every once in a while though


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## James From Cali (Dec 15, 2006)

Yeah Im going to have it a species only tank, they are very very worth itIMO, Im probably going to due like 13-15 fish. Im sure I can do more but I dont want to chance anything as they are 2.99 fish here.


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## Riley (Jan 24, 2006)

I keep about 30 of them in a my 50 gallon tank along with some Jae barbs and a pair of Apistos. They do just fine. As long as they can get food and wont get eaten they will be fine. But it seems you have made your decision. Good luck....great fish!!!


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## dekstr (Oct 23, 2007)

Man I've been thinking of getting ember tetras the last few days!

Good thread. I think they will do ok in a community tank. If there are larger fish, it will make them school closer. But a species tank, they will be very happy and swim all over the place.

Before I added pearl gouramies, my RM tetras would be super lazy and barely swim around. Now they know who's boss and swim around together all day.


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## moogoo (Dec 7, 2007)

Sad. I went to petsmart today and didn't see any ember tetras. Saw some cardinals though, but for some reason the cardinals at petsmart had a very thin bit of silver at the bottom? In other words, the bottom half wasn't entirely red... is that normal for cardinals or is it a sign of poor conditions/stress? sorry to hijack. I would like ember tetras too  they look neat.


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## dekstr (Oct 23, 2007)

Sounds like a neon tetra to me.
















Neon on left. Cardinal on right.
BTW I just saw some google pictures of cardinals... my cardinals are much fatter ;P lol


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## lauraleellbp (Feb 3, 2008)

I'm a tetra freak. Embers are lovely little ones; if they're in a community tank you need to be extra careful about their tankmates. Peaceful, relatively slow-moving, preferably other small tetras, cories, that sort of thing.

James- good move; the puffer probably would have been a bad choice to mix with them. You're not keeping the puffer in a brackish setup?


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## imeridian (Jan 19, 2007)

Dwarf puffers are a completely freshwater species, adorable little fish too.


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## lauraleellbp (Feb 3, 2008)

I've heard both about puffers? Can't say I've ever kept or researched them... maybe the brackish connection was for breeding dwarf puffers?  

They are cuties though


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## moogoo (Dec 7, 2007)

dekstr said:


> Sounds like a neon tetra to me.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


They definitely weren't neons as the red part did go all the way to the mouth, but the bottom bit had some white. Looks like it in that pic there too. Just in some of the ones at the petsmart seemed to have a bit more white and red was more faded. Probably just unhealthy. I just thought the entire bottom of cardinals were 100% red. Guess not.


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## imeridian (Jan 19, 2007)

Cardinals do indeed have a silvery underbelly, it's just not very obvious when viewing a healthy/happy fish in profile.


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## moogoo (Dec 7, 2007)

Ah ha. So i was not crazy. My question is does their red recede during stress or times of ill health, thereby revealing more "silvery belly"? I think the more red the nicer the cardinal. Just curious if i could get their color back after buying them and their bottom halves aren't as red as they could be.


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## imeridian (Jan 19, 2007)

I've seen Cardinals at Petsmart that were very pale. The skinny ones seem to show the silvery underbelly moreso than my plump ones, and I've never seen a well fed Cardinal at any fish shoppe. They also "turn off" their red at night, though I never bothered to look up why that may be, other than a defense mechanism.

I would definitely keep tiny Tetras on their own or with other tiny Tetras. I was trying to find it, but was unsuccessful, but someone had posted a tank with Embers and some other blue Tetra, it was quite striking.


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## moogoo (Dec 7, 2007)

Thanks for the info indiboi. I think i'll read up more on cardinals.

I would love to get some ember tetras though. Since they are so small, I could potentially get an even larger school of them for my tank. Unfortunately, it seems they are hard to find and even if I locate them, they sound kind of pricey. A large school would mean a large hole in my bank account.


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## imeridian (Jan 19, 2007)

moogoo said:


> A large school would mean a large hole in my bank account.


That can easily be the case with Cardinals if you're not careful... the mortality rate can be extremely high.


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## dekstr (Oct 23, 2007)

indiboi said:


> They also "turn off" their red at night, though I never bothered to look up why that may be, other than a defense mechanism.


One theory (and just a theory) is that they use is as a visible sign to find each other.

Carindals in the wild live in black water that are often times so tea-coloured w/ dead leaves and decaying plant matter that vision is extremely limited underwater. Which is why cardinals and other fish from blackwater habitats are usually very colourful. On the other hand, predators in blackwater become very plain-coloured, as to avoid detection by prey. With bright colours, they can see each other easily and school together. Schooling is good as it offers small fish protection. From afar, they appear as one large moving entity, possibly scaring off predators. Furthermore, when predators try to eat them, their sheer numbers can easily confuse the attacker and avoid getting eaten. Ironically, the drawback is that they become more visible to predators. But they have been schooling for a long time, so it must be a strategy that works.

At night time, they "turn-off" their colours because they no longer need to find each other. They hide at night-time, and avoid detection when nocturnal predators come out. If they were coloured up, they would be easily picked-off.



indiboi said:


> That can easily be the case with Cardinals if you're not careful... the mortality rate can be extremely high.


Cardinals are quite fragile during the acclimatizing stage. Afterwards, they are extremely hardy and can live for many years. I think this is because most cardinals are wild caught, as it is cheaper to do so than captive breed. But not to get into the economics of that. I lost 4 out of 20 to start off. The surviving ones are doing quite well and are very bold. I do notice some silver under their bellies.


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## Riley (Jan 24, 2006)

I always wait a couple of weeks for tetras to settle in at LFS. Especially with cardinals. I have had whole batches of 20 cardinals die off on my when I have bought them too soon. Just give them a while make sure they are fat and the color is good then buy some.


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## lauraleellbp (Feb 3, 2008)

Plus QT. As almost all of them are wild-caught they typically are in some stage of succumbing to parasites/infections with the stress of shipping and continual re-adjusting... I always QT mine in salt as I tend to assume they've been exposed so something nasty somewhere in the process of making it to me?


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## moogoo (Dec 7, 2007)

Sorry, I seem to have hijacked this thread with my cardinal question! 

I've heard they're very sensitive to change during acclimation. I intend on doing the drip method to acclimate them once I get them and take my time getting them into the tank. I intend on only buying them from a place that does quarantine them before selling them and I know my local petsmart gets their fish every wednesday so if on tuesday they have cardinals, it would mean they have lasted at least a week or more. Also, 14 day survival guarantee's are always nice, although no one likes to see their fish die.


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## dekstr (Oct 23, 2007)

Fortunately I think the ones I bought were local bred--very hard to find, but they seemed much hardier than other w/c fish. I did a slow drip acclimation process of 2-3 hours...

I kept them in the QT tank for about 1 month when they were plump and ready to go to main tank. I used a lot of peat in the water to hopefully mimic their natural environment too, dark tea-coloured water.



Back to ember tetras...lol

How is the purchase going? Any updates?


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## James From Cali (Dec 15, 2006)

Im going to wait a couple of weeks before buying any cause they just got them in and they are not as healthy as some of the pics I seen so Im giving them time to strengthen up. Since its Petsmart thy wont hold any fish for me but I will keep an eye on it. Im going to get more plants for the tank first so when I do get a few then they are at least in a semi planted tank with enough cover. Here is the tank that they will be in, not all the plants are staying in there though. 

The back behind wood









Giant Pond Snail









Full Tank(Rock on wood temporary)


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## James From Cali (Dec 15, 2006)

I was researching Peacock Gudgeons as they are also available to me. They are slowmoving and peaceful. Would these be fine with the embers as sort of a centerpiece type fish?


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## dekstr (Oct 23, 2007)

According to this website,

"Tank Mates: Fellow good mixers include dwarf gouramis, sparkling gouramis, honey gouramis, white clouds, featherfin rainbows, kuhli loaches, glassfish, killifish, otocinclus, red cherry shrimp, ghost shrimp, and other mini-fishes."

So I see why not?


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## James From Cali (Dec 15, 2006)

Okay thanks! They look so awesome and get colorful....nice contrast to the tetras I think


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## Riley (Jan 24, 2006)

James,

The embers arent gonna ever look as good as the pictures on the net in the stores. They take a while to get comfortable and color up. Mine after two weeks are completely colored up yet...you just have to feed, feed, feed. Live blackworms seem to do the trick pretty well.


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## James From Cali (Dec 15, 2006)

Yeah. I still have to wait as I dont have the funds for the fish as of right now. Doing the math I would spend about $45 on the tetras and $25 on a pair of Gudgeons.


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## Riley (Jan 24, 2006)

Damn! Thats alot of cash for tetras! Well let em marinate for a while and good luck when you get em!


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## James From Cali (Dec 15, 2006)

Yes. I would be allowing them to acclimate a great deal(about an hour and a half) in order to make sure they are use to my water. I may have to set up a drip acclimation system. The gudgeons will acclimate for an hour. I been saying "Damn I want these fish so badly....no new outfit next month, or the month after" lol.


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## dekstr (Oct 23, 2007)

Another idea could be to buy just a pair and try to breed them. Keep some and sell the rest!


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## James From Cali (Dec 15, 2006)

dekstr said:


> Another idea could be to buy just a pair and try to breed them. Keep some and sell the rest!


I heard the embers(like other tetras) are harder to breed and in that I'd still need about 3 or 4 to make sure I get a pair. The difference between male and female are the color and they look the same at petsmart so that may not work out. If that would work from the get go then I would do it.


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