Keeping fish 'happy'.

[henderg]

Do fish need to be stimulated by their suroundings? I have a 54 litre Black Neon Tetra only tank, and as I was watching them earlier, I wondered what items I could put into their environment to make life better. I currently have 4 different plants: 2 broadleaf, and 2 fernlike. I'm planning to introduce a nice mid-tank current for them, as I've heard they like this.

When I get my next tank, I was wanting to try to recreate the natural surroundings for tetras. I'm thinking of a 55 gallon tank with 12 Black Neons, 12 Rummynose and 12 Glowlights (plus 2 or 3 bottom feeders). Can anyone point me in the direction of any books on tetras?

 

[Stryker]

caves, they like exploring. also every couple of months move any decorations you have around. It really depends on the fish.

Also to keep mine stimulated I vary their feeding patterns. Some days they have two half portions of flakes.... other days I feed them one whole portion. I also vary the feeding times. Also I keep a freezer pack of blood worms and shrimp for occational treats. Its not just their environment that stimulates them

 

[henderg]

Thanks. I give them a varied diet: flakes in the morning and either tubiflex, daphnia or bloodworm at night. I plan to make a coconut 'cave', but I don't have any decorations besides real plants as it's only a 54 litre tank.

 

[Stryker]

I did cave into pressure from my oldest kid a while back and bought one of those stupid bubble UFOs (the one that fills up with air goes to the top then sinks back down again).... certainly gave the fish something to watch..... till I saw it flippin well land on a guppy that was interested in the sand it had disturbed..... no more UFOs

 

[henderg]

Ok, no UFO's. You've given me some food for thought, so I'll go away and see what comes of it.

By the way, I notice you have 3 solo tetras. How do they get on with your other tetras? Do they keep together, or tootle about on their own?

 

[Stryker]

I saw that question asked some time ago and everyone with tetras had different oppinions. However in my setup they all club together. They are all middle dwellers, peaceful and gragarious so they tend to hand out together only occasionally being broken up by a pack of high speed zebra danios passing through

 

[Yenko]

My Viejita cichlid (an apistogramma) as well as my clown loaches seem to enjoy a change of pace. It was a very excited, happy day in my tank when I put a bigger cave for my blood parrot in. It was made from some nondescript basalt and a beautiful peice of brown pink yellow and oarnge sandstone.

 

[henderg]

I ended up putting 2 scraped and boiled coconuts into the tank, with four 'sides' cut off to create wee gazebos. the tetras like to 'sit' in these.

 

[myenigmaself]

I have a single silver tip tetra in with my buenos aires tetras. Even though the silver tip is about half the size of the buenos aires, he still schools with them, and occasionaly tries to mate with them when he's "in the mood."