Introducing Some New Little Guys

[.Relinquished]

I have 2 Columbian tetras
2 jewel tetras
3 black neon tetras
and 2 bronze corys

They are all adult size and I want to add some more guys from the LFS. They are tiny, will the bigger fish nip or bully around the smaller fish?

 

[Lateral Line]

With small groups like that, there will always be uncertainty, shoaling fish kept in small numbers are apt to behave oddly.

A common trick when introducing new fish to an established heirarchy is to move all the tank decor around. In that way, the "old" fish find themselves in "new" surroundings which just happen to have some extra fish in them. In unfamiliar setting, the dominance is less defined, and a new bout of "pecking order" squabbles will break out.

 

[ghostchoir]

They probably will at first. Depends on your fish really. My danios can be extremely mean when new fish go in and will start chasing and nipping them - not sure why as there's more than enough of them with a lot of space and hiding places and they're usually perfectly friendly! But yes, after about ten minutes or so they get over attacking whatever new fish is in and accept them. They absolutely HATED the neon tetras when I put them in and were horrible to them, but after the ten minutes or so of anger towards the invaders they actually grouped off and we had neons shoaling with the danios etc.

It helps if you can either rearrange their tank or feed them to distract them.

 

[.Relinquished]

Thanks alot, good to hear, because im switching my gravel to a black sand substrate and adding some rocks to build caves. I'll add the new fish after I do all this