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I have a small (6) group of rummynoses in my 30g. I like them a lot but lost quite a few after the initial purchase plus I'm having a hard time finding more locally. I'm doing an order online and my choices are:

green fire tetra, Aphyocharax rathbuni

bloodfin tetra, Aphyocharax anisitsi

golden pencilfish, Nannostomus beckfordi

The tank is dark...black gravel, lots of driftwood, well planted....I'm looking for something to complement the red of the rummynoses but I've never kept any of the above fish & I don't know how true-to-life the online pictures are.

Thanks

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There is water at the bottom of the ocean

I really like the way the pencilfish look. I think they would look really cool against your black substrate. But I dont knw how well they would compliment your rummynoses. I am not too fond of the bloodfin tetra though.

I think that you should go with the green fire tetras. My friend has a school of bloodfins and they get pretty boring afterwhile.

-Vincent

I'd go with the pencilfish if you can make sure that you only get one male. I had twelve pencilfish in my 55 and the three or four males bickered constantly. One male and five or six females would probably do really well.

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Cake or death?

I had a few green fire tetras that I got as a bonus on a fish order. They were quite hardy, social, and schooled with my other tetras. Mine were more colorful than the ones in the pictures. The green was pale, but definitely green, and the red was very ounced, which I liked a lot. They're slightly smaller than the rummynose tetras, and they can be lost in a heavily planted tank (mine were), but I thought they were great, and a nice substitute for the more common small tetras.

I'm not fond of the bloodfin tetras, and I think the pencilfish bodies look too much like the striped rummynoses and you won't have the contrast.

Hoping that there must be a word for everything I mean...

At risk of being labelled boring, but perhaps cardinal tetras would be well suited?

I think all are great choices for different reasons.
The green fire tetras are quite uncommon, and look
very unique.
The bloodfins are possibly one of the best schooling
fish I have ever seen period, and look amazing in a planted tank. Pictures do not do them justice.

Pencilfish would be my fave of the 3. They are unique, and look nothing at all like any fish you already have. I cannot even see any comparison to rummynose at all.
The picture of the pencilfish in that picture is horrible. These fish colour up near to solid red, and have a different swimming behaviour than most other fish.
I have found pencilfish to squabble amongst themselves, regardless of gender. The alpha pencil pair will always harass lower ranking pencils, no matter what. If kept in a large enough group, any aggression will be spread out nicely.
I have never kept these in a group bigger than 4 (2 pair) myself but they should be fine.
Myself, I would pick the pencils, but all are good choices.
I will attach a picture of my beckford's pencilfish, so you can see what they actually look like coloured up.

Alpha Male pencil in nearly full colour







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I'd go with the pencilfish. I've never kept them myself, but they everyone that I have ever talked to that kept them loved 'em.

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I used to be Snow White, but I drifted.
~ Mae West

Pencilfish, definitely. They are Characins that think they are Killifish. They are often shy when you first get them, but they become bolder and adapt well to most communities.

I have some little Golden Pencils in with some False Black Widow Tetras, and eight-inch Snakeskin Gourami, some Denisoni Barbs, and a Catalina Tetra, and the Pencilfish pretty much own the top layers of the tank and are always the first to eat.

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I'm not your neighbor, you Bakersfield trash.

If you run with the Beckford's Pencil Fishes, make sure that females outnumber the males by a LARGE margin.

I made the mistake of putting together a shoal with equal gender ratios. Everything was OK for the first few weeks while they settled in, then ...

The males underwent a TOTAL personality change. Literally as if a switch had been thrown, and suddenly, they stopped behaving like peaceful shoaling Characins, and started acting like Melanochromis chipokae Cichlids! What's more, the intensity of the violence seemed to increase with age - the males set about systematically exterminating all of my females, then set about exterminating each other. My alpha male had a positively pyroclastic temper whenever he was faced with a rival male, and he didn't seem to like the females all that much either, but it was the second male in the pecking order who was the serious 'wife beater'.

On the basis of my experience, I would not keep this species in anything less than a 4ft aquarium, I'd skew the gender ratio to something like 1 male to 5 females, and I'd watch them like a hawk.

Oh, they're lovely fishes to look at, but they have a VERY definite tendency toward becoming territorial and aggressive with each other. Don't let that delicate appearance and small mouth fool you - these things can be as feisty as Green Terrors when they want to be!

If you're planning on keeping Backford's, a long tank is the order of the day. Also, watch for them getting up to other tricks too - my alpha male wasn't averse to trying to steal live Bloodworm from the mouths of my Panda Corys!


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

I keep my pencils in a group of 4, 2 male 2 female
in my 10g tank, with absolutely no aggression whatsoever.
This is my second grouping of pencils in this ratio,
and no problems either time.


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I keep beckfords, three lines, and [have kept] both variants of coral reds, and none of said fish have ever shown such violent aggression, and considering how my largest current tank is a 20 long, I tihnk Cass's pencil experience is probably a rare irregularity (redundant, I know, but just emphasizing the point).

Thanks for all the replies

I ended up getting the green fire tetras. They've been in the QT for a few hours now and are coloring up quite nicely.

Last night we made a quick stop at a local chain store for Melafix. I hadn't been in this store for a long time and they really fixed up their aquatic department, all the tanks looked fantastic. And big surprise....rummynoses!!!

So I think the green fires will go in my daughter's tank (she has 3 glowlights and 2 gouramis) and we'll get the spouse his rummynoses afterall

~~~~~~~~~~~~
There is water at the bottom of the ocean

My vote was with pencilfish too. But after reading Calilasseia's post, I think u've made a smart choice