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I bought an 18 gal. tank with different kinds of fish in it. Among the fish are 4 long finned blk. skirt tetras. There are also 3 fish that look like the tetras, only short fins & they're a pink color. They all hang around together as if they are the same species.

They came with no heater. I've had them a couple days. I gave them a heater & a variety of foods since I've had them. This am. when I turned the lights on, it looked like a shark feeding frenzy in there! lol They weren't feeding on anything but all the tetra types were chasing the largest one. All are about the same size except for the large one.

There's no nipping, so I assume it's breeding behavior. This has been going on for hrs.! Was I unfortunate enough to get 6 males & 1 female!? I read the profile on this site, but I still don't understand the difference between male & female. Can anyone explain it better & tell me how long this behavior will continue? It's pretty frantic, so if it continues to the end of the day, I may transfer her to my 55 gal.. I was going to put them all in the 55 eventually anyway.

Thanks in advance for any thoughts on this. And might the pink ones be albino tetras?
Years ago I think I saw them in wal-mart with dyes injected into them, & I think they called them fruity tetras?

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Unless it is the long finned variety I think it is that the females have rounded anal fins and the males fins are flowing horizontally

-Vincent

the pink tetras aren't Hyphessobrycon flammeus are they?

do they look similar to the blackskirts? cause some of the blackskirts are bred without color then injected with dye...

as far as breeding behavior I poked around on the internet and came up with nothing

I had to go to wal-mart today & I saw my pink tetras. They were listed as fruit tetras. Mine looked just like them with pink see through bodies & a dark pink horizontal line right down the middle.

I looked up your tetra reun. No that is not mine. Mine look exactly like blk. skirts except minus the color. These haven't been injected with color either, unless it was pink see through. lol And they aren't the long finned variety.

Yes bud, the other 4 tetras are the long finned variety. The skirt is not blk. but a light grey, & so is the top fin. And the top fin is elongated also. The rest of their bodies are colored a light grey with blk. skirt markings on the body. All fins on the bodies are flowing along with the tail.

Of the 3 pink tetras bud, 2 have rounded anal fins while the third seems to have a slightly flowing one. So you may be onto something there. But if that is the case , it doesn't explain why ALL the tetras were chasing the largest one. later when they tired, I noticed all they did when they came up to her was to come up along beside her.

To prevent her from becoming too stressed, I did remove her & put her into the 55.

Thanks for poking the internet reun. lol I might sometime too, in order to see if I can distinguish male from female. I'm sure this was courting behavior, in which case I need to get more females. Thanks guys!

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Fruit tetras are just dyed albino black skirt tetras (Gymnocorymbus ternetzi).

Assuming they dont get dye toxicity or cauliflower disease and live long enough to breed, the breeding behaviour will obviously be the usual nearby plant spawning, and chasing.

Sounds like you have only one mature female, and the whole shoal dynamic is skewed because of this .

Either get more females (preferably undyed - dont encourage the dying of fish)and enlarge the shoal, or keep her just with a couple of males and no more. They will persue her until she dies , judging by the reaction you witnessed. She may be already scattering eggs too, its not uncommon for her to do the shimmy with one fish, and then have the whole shoal just close in a literal feeding frenzy, picking off the eggs.

heh....I wondered if they were dyed albinos...what longhair said...I dont know how you will determine which ones are females though in order to add more to the school...I looked some more on the internet and came up with nothing

Yeah git, that's pretty much what I figured.

The large female is a grey long finned. I would like to add the other 3 grey long finned into the 55 with her, but not until I get another female.

That leaves the 3 albinos, I don't really care for in the 18 gal.. I was wanting to clear the 18 gal. of fish some day, so I could add a pair of rams. I've been reading about rams & see different opinions. Some say they will breed reasonably peacefully, while others say they might try to kill the rest of the fish in the tank. I guess I can just leave the albinos in there & see what happens.

Ha......thanks reun for looking! I guess I'll have to search too & see if I can come up with anything. If I could understand the explanation on this site it might help. The way I understand it, I have all females? lol

Ahhhhhhh fish keeping can be involved if you let it. I bought a male platy to go with the females. 2 female swords to go with the male, & so far 3 cories cause there weren't any in the new tank. Now I'm on a quest to discover what a female long finned blk. skirt tetra looks like & last night I looked at ALL the cories on Planet Catfish & didn't recognize mine. Doesn't matter, I was just curious. No, I can't get a pic..

I guess this is just part of the "fun" of fish keeping.

Thanks guys!

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Rams are moody when breeding, but are not generally the killers that bigger cichlids become with other fish. Ram aggression is usually focused on other rams, and they arent especially effective fighters. Rams may give small fish the odd nip to clear them away from the nest site, but they generally arent as persecutory as say my acaras are. Most ram aggression is between males and males, and females and females when competing for the right to breed.

Oh, ok git. thanks.Then I'll just leave the 3 pink in that tank. I searched the net today & it said there were strains of the blk. skirt tetra now........white , pink & blue. It also said one or both of the light colors (I don't remember) were also injected with dyes & sold under different names, such as strawberry, etc..

And reun I found out that they take two years to reach sexual maturity! The females are plumper & more robust. And one sure way to find out which sex you have is to fetch them out with a net & with your wet finger to feel the anal fin of the fish. If it's smooth, it's a female. If your finger feels little barbs, it's a male. They're so tiny they aren't visible though. I'm sure wal-mart would let me do that.

And I found out I have peppered cories. I love the net...... Info. at your fingertips!