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I saw some Balloon Red Eye Tetras in my LFS today. Does anyone have any info on them? I'm thinking about adding 5 or 7 to my community 75.

Thanks!

Dont do it.
Buy something that occurs naturally in the wild instead.

Because they are not natural or because they tend to have health problems?

I completely understand your opinion about buying natural fish. The rest of mine are. It's rare that my wife and I both see a fish we like. I either make this tank work or we start over and go salt.

I haven't seen them, but in general balloon fish tend to have more issues to to the way their innards have to rearrange to fit the new shape. They also tend to have some difficulty with speed and agility because the body shape just doesn't lend itself to ease of movement. Ballooning it is a deformity that breeds true (though the same can be said for most 'fancy' fish, this one has more pitfalls than most), so the fish doesn't have any hope of adjusting because the trait can fix in only one or two generations.

If you do buy them, pick fish that are the least compressed (or at least compressed in a way that the fish still looks streamlined rather than like it swam head first into a wall and folded up like a concertina) and that are able to swim efficiently. You also want to check that they can move up and down through the water without too much hassle.

Do you have other red eyes in the tank?



For animals, the entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks. - Terry Pratchett

No other red eyes. 2 angels, 3 rainbows and about 20 tetras and white clouds. I thought these would make a nice contrast to the slender schools.

I don't recall them having any trouble swimming. I don't think they were round like other balloon fish. More like a columbian tetra.

http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u305/Krash7172/misc/bredeye.gif

Man, that sucks.
Dont do it. Red eyes in their own right are quite aggressive anyway, and may pick at your othe tetras.
If your tank size allows for it, why not try upping the amount of angels?

I'll probably skip on the red eyes and maybe increase the number of schooling fish I already have. I had some giant danios that were simply crazy. I traded them for some long fin danios and they are still a little too active for me. Once I removed them, all of the fish became more calm and school tighter.

If I add any larger fish, it will be rainbows.

Thanks for the input.