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Anyone have experience with these? I think they're stunning. I've read they can be very nervous.

Hi Pirhana, Congo Tetras are on the larger side as far as tetra's go.

They are nervous when you first place them in the tank, you may not even notice them eating as they tend to hide but after a few weeks they will become right at home.

I had 4 in a community tank and they ate everything that went into the tank, even the live crickets for my African Butterfly Fish. They are very active and like large (long) spaces to swim. I had to move them in the end as they got too large for my 4 foot aquarium.

So as I mentioned they do get rather large and prefer to be in groups, bear this in mind when you get yours. If you can only get a couple this may cause them to become shy and nervous.

Hope this helps and welcome to Fish Profiles.

Cheers
Crusha

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Those who say they cant, Never will !!!

They do best in large groups in tanks of at least 4' length. Males can get fairly large and reach quite a bit of speed when flying down the length of a big tank. Mine always did best with a group of 8 or more but 6 got along fine as well. When I had smaller numbers they hid alot and some of the males even went crashing into the bottoms or sides of the tank in attempts to hide. Females are much calmer and it really helps if you have at least 1 female to every 2-3males. The whole school stays calmer and the males get alot brighter colors. It also helps alot if the tank has plenty of decorations and plants.

In the right setup I found mine to not be shy at all and even take food from my hands and jump out of the water for crickets. They spawned about monthly and they can easily live 5years in such a setup. My oldest males were pretty impressive both in color, finnage, and size. Unfortnately whenever I tried to move them to a smaller tank with no other fish to save some of the eggs any males I moved would get stressed and go into hiding for many weeks. Even when I used a very heavily planted and decorated tank with varying gender ratios. They just wouldn't calm down and spawn in smaller tanks with a small number of fish. In a small, bare tank with only a few fish they would probably end up dying quite early from stress.

i'd agree with the above post - the more the merrier, and the better the cover is, the safer they feel. i found mine really settled down once the banana lillies i had at the time reached the surface and spread some cover over the tank. be careful if you keep any small surface dwellers like hatchets - my large congos killed and ate a new batch of 6 hatchets in about 30 minutes. i don't think they 'meant' it, they were just attracted to the quick surface movement.

They will go after about anything on the surface or that falls from the surface. From duckweed floating by to small fish to crickets and other food. Even non food items occasionally get snatched up by a congo tetra. However I never had trouble keeping them with most small fish including threadfin rainbows, small guppies(they will eat very young baby guppies), otos(they didn't go after baby otos like they did guppies), and various inverts including baby shrimp. They don't go after things on the bottom but anything in the upper half of the tank that fits in their mouth is a potential target and they are so intent when going after food that I've had several people ask me if I had parahnas in the tank. Congos do have visible teeth but they are harmless.

I have a couple of these beautiful tetras. IME they arent as timid as people say they are. In fact, my male congo is the boss of the tank and often tries to chase and nip at my 5in rasboras. Another thing to watch out for is their plant-eating habits. if not given sufficient plant matter in their diet, they will often eat plants, even amazon swords (which mine had destroyed).

Mine never ate plants or nipped at other fish unless they were of bite size. Then they were taken in their mouth whole. They did eat duckweed floating on the surface but at one time or another I've had them in a tank planted with crypts, vals, dwarf lily, micro swords, hairgrass, mosses, amazon swords, aquatic onion, aquatic clover, anubias, hornwort, and I'm sure I'm missing something. They've never eaten any of those plants and I fed mine on an almost strictly carnivorous diet aside from the occasional duckweed that got in the tank when I added new plants.
Their diet mostly consisted of frozen foods such as bloodworms, brineshrimp, squid, and San Francisco Bay Brand mixes. Then I have brine shrimp flakes, new life spectrum pellets, and several freeze dried foods. Every few weeks I gave them live pinhead crickets and I seperated my male from female baby guppies by adding them to that tank so occasionally I'd add one when it was too small and it disappeared by the next morning. They've never shown any sign of being herbivorous and barely even ate omnivorous foods. I fed the tank veggie flakes and fresh vegetables on occasion and the congos just grabbed bits of it in passing but didn't go into a feeding frenzy like they do for crickets and frozen foods.