Bleeding Heart Tetras

[BigSteve]

At one point I had 3 bleeding heart tetras. Two were lively, and one was
forever hiding, scared, and not eating. With some difficulty I caught the scared
one and returned him to lfs. Over a period of a few days the other two (one in
particular) became big bullies... chasing the other fish all the time, extremely
territorial, and being total food hogs. The main food source for my cories and
neons are a sinking tablet every other day, and no matter how much flakes the
bleeding hearts would get at the top, they would then zoom down to the bottom,
take the entire tablet in their mouth, and zoom off with it to some out-of-the-way
part of the tank to consume. It got to the point I had to hold a stick down in the
vicinity of the tablet to chase the bleeding hearts away (for some reason the cories
and neons were not afraid of the stick at all). The bleeding hearts would run off and
hide for a good minute or so before reappearing.
Yet these mean, food hog bleeding hearts were also the biggest wimps. Anything I would put in the tank (stick, net, my hand, etc) those guys would run and cower
behind plants or whatever for anywhere from 1-5 minutes. None of the other fish
(even the neons) were such scaredy cats.
Anyway, the last straw came yesterday when I discovered one of my neons totally
missing, and one of my cory cats had a well-chewed up dorsal fin. I know good and
darn well it was those bleeding hearts. I caught them, returned to the lfs, and got some glowlight tetras instead. All seems well in the tank now. What a shame. The bleeding hearts are very cool-looking, but I doubt I will ever have any again.

 

[petitericeball]

from what i got maybe because when you returned the other tetra ya kno if their not in a school or watever they get mad etc i think...

did you get another one after you returned the first one or were they always like that??

 

[BigSteve]

Hi Mr. Riceball... No, I didn't get another one after I returned the first
one. But of the two that I kept, one was always a bit of a buly, even from the
first day. He just got worse later on. Maybe they would be better in a larger school,
I don't know. Right now I don't have a tank big enough to find out. But I did read
on some other website with fish profiles that bleeding hearts can get somewhat
aggressive as they get older or bigger. And mine weren't even that old or big.
But my tank is so peaceful now I'm not sure I'd try them again, even in a larger
tank. (hey, if you're in northern Illinois we're neighbors!)