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The Congo Tetra, Micralestes interruptus, is one of the staple fishes known and loved by Characin keepers around the world. Rightly admired for its iridescent colours, with large adults bearing opalescent scales that catch sunlight and refract all manner of vibrant colours while the fishes swim actively about their home, the Congo Tetra is one of the larger popular Characins, with some individuals capable of attaining 15 cm if kept in large quarters and well fed. However, there is more than one Congo Tetra to choose from!

Closely related to the familiar Congo Tetra is Micralestes stormsi, known as the Red Congo Tetra, a species which is starting to appear in some numbers in Europe (Germany is a good place to find these fishes for sale), and which may start to appear in American Characin keepers' collections in the not too distant future. The scales of this species are not as manifestly opalescent as those of its familiar relative, but the fish shimmers with an attractive combination of green and lavender iridescence when sunlit, and has distinctive red caudal fin lobes. Furthermore, male and female specimens can be differentiated as follows: males have a red adipose fin and red iris to the eye, while females have a silver iris and a less intensely coloured adipose.

First, the bad news. Micralestes stormsi is, at the moment, one of those fishes that is particularly sensitive to ammonia and nitrite. This makes acclimatisation somewhat difficult, and means that a quarantine tank needs some special preparation. Usually, quarantine aquaria tend to be minimally furnished, with a sponge filter present. For Micralestes stormsi, activated carbon filtration and a reasonably mature biological filter will be required to keep ammonia and nitrite at bay, which complicates matters a lot if the fishes need any medication. Consequently, this is not a beginner's species for the time being, although once captive-bred stock appears, this may change. For the moment, all the existing stock is wild caught, and subject to all of the complications that apply to wild-caught stock of any fish.

However, the good news is that once quarantined and acclimatised, Micralestes stormsi has a wide range of acceptability with respect to pH and hardness values. Anything between pH 6.0 and 7.6 is cited as acceptable, and specimens have lived in water as high as pH 8.0 and thrived. Hardness can be as high as 25° dH, and the fishes will happily accept anything that is not too extreme. Provided ammonia and nitrite are kept at bay, the Red Congo Tetra is adaptable and relatively hardy, but will be among the first fish species to suffer if a biological filter crash occurs.

As might be expected, this is a shoaling species, and should be kept in numbers. Six is a bare minimum, and the bigger the shoal, the better. Like its more familiar cousin, the Red Congo needs a large aquarium - 150 cm long is a minimum size - furnished with the usual Characin furnishings of open spaces interspersed with plant thickets. An aquarium containing Congo Tetras and Red Congo Tetras makes a stunning display, especially if it is large enough to accommodate a minimum of twelve of each species, along with certain Barbs as companions. Indeed, as a large community fish, Micralestes stormsi has much to recommend it to those aquarists with the experience to nurse the fish through a potentially difficult quarantining, as it exhibits a wonderful combination of lively shoaling behaviour with a generally peaceful nature. As yet, the species is not reported (to my knowledge at least) to have spawned in captivity, but once captive breeding is successful, and aquarium-bred stock becomes available in quantity, the quarantine issue may lessen in importance. Smaller than the familiar Congo Tetra, Micralestes stormsi reaches 10 cm, but lacks nothing in the appearance department for that: the red flashes on the caudal fin make a nice contrast with the blue-greens and sunshine yellows of the Congo Tetra, and its own green and lavender iridescence makes it a fish of distinction in its own right. This fish would also integrate well with some Rasbora species, chosen for colour contrast, and a long display aquarium with 20 of these fishes alongside Spanner T Barbs and Rasbora elegans would be something of a show stopper!

The quarantine issue prevents this fish from being recommended to beginners, which is a pity, but captive bred stock may prove to be less troublesome in future, and I suspect Micralestes stormsi could become one of the staples of larger Characin keeping, given time and enough dedicated hobbyists determined to breed it in captivity. One for Bruce Moomaw to experiment with if he acquires a financial windfall, perchance?


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

Interesting article -- do you have any pictures? I'd love to see what one looks like. Thanks for the post!

Great article. I heard these guys go well with tangs, too. A tank of these and some shellies would look AWESOME.

Oh, and the congo tet is actually of the genus phenacogramus (spelling?)

Thanks for the tip, Callie, but the problem with inserting any kind of Congo into the library tank that I maintain is that they grow to be sufficiently big that they'd likely start snacking on a lot of the small fish that I absolutely refuse to omit from the tank (Cardinals, Glowlights, Hengeli rasboras, etc.). Also, despite all the people in this group who genuinely love them, I just don't find regular Congos colorful enough for my taste -- and the same seems to be true of this fish, judging from the photos I've found. (My LFS does currently have a bunch of "Red-Eyed African Tetras" -- Arnoldichthys spilopterus -- which I'm kind of taken with; I like their bright orange eyes. But again, given their cost and their eventual size, I'm not taken enough to actually buy any.)


By the way, good photos of Micralestes stormsi can be found at:

http://www.exomarc.com/default_zone/gb/html/page-177.html

http://www.thatfishshop.com/findex/fish/micralestes_stormsi.htm

http://www.hippocampus-bildarchiv.de/html/en/zierfische/salmler/afrika/a44510.html

http://kids.goo.ne.jp/island/monoshiri/pet/zukan/fwfish/kind/38.html