Emperor Tetras

[steelhealr]

Hi....I saw Emperor tetras for the first time in a tank at an lfs and it's the first FW fish I've seen in awhile that was truly impressive in appearance. I did a little research on them, but, for any of you out there that have them, I was curious about their behavior in your tank. Are they active or more on the passive side? close schooling fish? Thank for your input. SH

 

[The-Wolf]

I don't own them, but as a LFS employee, let me tell you my observations.

if you are enquiring about Nematobrycon palmeri they are not a good schooler and a little on the active side; nowhere near as active as danios, but more active than say neons.
they do prefer to hide amoungst dense plants and really relish a subdude light level, for this an amazon biotope(blackwater) is their best tank set up.

if you are enquiring about Impaichthys kerri then the same can be said with the exception of the light levels they are not tha fussed and you can do without blackwater conditions.

HTH

 

[phoenixfire]

mine just died ..but they are truely beautiful fish to bring into a community...mine did tend to stay to themselves and mind their own business...extremely hardy...they went through a complete wipeout of all my fish a while back...the three i had at the time where the only survivors and were covered with ick...they became even more beautiful after the epidimec...2 eventually died for whatever reason...and the last one died about 2 weeks ago because of natural causes...he was three years old!

as the wolf said they arent very good schoolers at all....but i dont believe they are as active as the wolf has said...the ones i had tended to be more on the lazy side way more than neons...but fish have their own personalities...watch the fish before u make your choice...

 

[Lateral Line]

I have not kept them for years, but recall them being pretty active, but not aggresive. I never had any trouble keeping them, but then, I always keep my water quality high, and stock levels low. I had 7-8 in a well planted 48x18x18 with some phantoms and neons.

Schooling/shoaling is rarely seen in a small quiet tank, the fish do not feel threatened enough to school up.

 

[steelhealr]

These were Nematobrycon palmeri. They didn't seem active in the tank..but then again...who would when there are 20-30 in a 10-20 gallon tank. Thanks for all your input. This was the first time I had seen this species of tetra. SH

 

[ksam]

I used to have a load of these fish, they really are beautiful, completely nuts but beautiful, lol.
The males get lovelly fins and have bright blue eyes, the females have green so really easy to tell which is which If the tank is heavily planted then they're a lot happier, chasing each other about out in the open. My lot spawned in the tank quite a few tanks, but since it was a community tanks all the eggs were quickly eaten (they also loved to eat everyone elses eggs, lol).

I did find the dominent male to be very aggressive towards other males when the females were ready to spawn, at one point he'd claimed nearly half the tank chasing everyone else over to the other side until I was forced to move the plants around to break his territory up a bit

do have a few photos of them in my tank but can't figure out how to post them here ) any hints??

 

[phoenixfire]

photobucket.com