What kind of freshwater fish are these? Rummy-Nose or?

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

I’ve always had soft water, and I get jealous sometimes of people with hard water. I’ve missed out on a lot of CA cichlids and livebearers.

There’s a few tetras that are good in hard water... Penguins (T. boehlkei), Emperors, and Silver-tips come to mind.

Emperors can do hard water?? I like the penguins too! My water is "makes mollies happy" hard though, 253ppm if I remember rightly. Us hardwater folks are basically restricted to livebearers, cichlids or rainbowfish though. I do like mollies and guppies, endlers; and a friend tracked down cories that can cope with harder water (bronzes, sterbai and schwartzi, among a few others), and I'm really getting into psuedomugli. I'm not really into cichlids on the whole though.

So my larger tanks I keep hardwater, and have a 15.5g that I soften with rainwater so I can keep pygmy cories and otos in there, so only small soft water fish since I can't/won't deal with the expense and hassle of RO, and can only really collect enough rainwater to sustain a 15.5g.
I didn't know about those tetra though! If you know of any other fish that are surprisingly good with harder water other than multis, please do let me know!

 

[Ichthys]

There’s quite a few tetras from the ‘wrong side’ of the Andes that will do well in hard water. All of these listed encounter a GH of more than 15 in at least parts of their natural range according to FishBase.

Nematobrycon palmeri and N. lacortei,
Hyphessobrycon heterorhabdus,
H. sweglesi (Red Phantom),
H. columbianus (Columbian Tetra),
H. bentosi,
Black Widow (Black Skirt),
Glass Bloodfin (Prionobrama filigera),
Head and Tail Lights,
Silvertips,
‘False’ Penguins (T. boehlkei, the one that’s in the hobby).

Go to Fishbase and look at the lists from different countries in coastal regions. These countries tend to have some hard water rivers. The fish I’ve listed are all from Columbia and Peru.



Just a rather obvious word of warning though... don’t buy any of these fish in soft water and put them straight into hard. Acclimatise them gradually.

 

[GaryE]

You should look for Sawbwa resplendens, the Asian rummy nose. It's a torpedo shaped barb relative that only gets its red nose if the water is hard and clean. So in a way, it's also a test kit - if the water gets dirty the nose dials down. I had a group for a while, and they were great little fish - very tetra like in behaviour.

My water now is from a blackwater lake, so soft soft soft. Yesterday, I got to enjoy watching cardinals I'd bred here go into my main group from their growout, and find their way in the gaggle/shoal. It was neat. One of my negadagua tetras, who are the agitators of the tank, decided to nose around one of the young cardinals, and I guess the juvenile (who was safe size-wise) released a fright warning chemical because all the other cardinals moved in and formed a shoal around it for a minute or two. By afternoon, they were all happily foraging.

You got a bad deal from whomever sold those tetras as rummys. I'm assuming it was online. Not good.

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

You should look for Sawbwa resplendens, the Asian rummy nose. It's a torpedo shaped barb relative that only gets its red nose if the water is hard and clean. So in a way, it's also a test kit - if the water gets dirty the nose dials down. I had a group for a while, and they were great little fish - very tetra like in behaviour.

Ooohhh, that one is already on my wishlist! I've not seen them in person yet, but fell in love with them when I saw them in a youtube video! They almost look like they're dusted in glitter, and I'm always drawn to the blue fish, I don't know why, but it's my favourite fish colour. I should call our last two privately owned LFS and see whether they ever get them in. Thank you for reminding me of them! Man, I might need to set up some more tanks...!

My water now is from a blackwater lake, so soft soft soft. Yesterday, I got to enjoy watching cardinals I'd bred here go into my main group from their growout, and find their way in the gaggle/shoal. It was neat. One of my negadagua tetras, who are the agitators of the tank, decided to nose around one of the young cardinals, and I guess the juvenile (who was safe size-wise) released a fright warning chemical because all the other cardinals moved in and formed a shoal around it for a minute or two. By afternoon, they were all happily foraging.

That's so cool! It makes sense that they can communicate by chemically signalling to each other so the shoal can respond as a larger group. Beautiful the way they move in synch with one another, like a flock of birds.

 

[Slaphppy7]

There’s quite a few tetras from the ‘wrong side’ of the Andes that will do well in hard water. All of these listed encounter a GH of more than 15 in at least parts of their natural range according to FishBase.

Nematobrycon palmeri and N. lacortei,
Hyphessobrycon heterorhabdus,
H. sweglesi (Red Phantom),
H. columbianus (Columbian Tetra),
H. bentosi,
Black Widow (Black Skirt),
Glass Bloodfin (Prionobrama filigera),
Head and Tail Lights,
Silvertips,
‘False’ Penguins (T. boehlkei, the one that’s in the hobby).

Go to Fishbase and look at the lists from different countries in coastal regions. These countries tend to have some hard water rivers. The fish I’ve listed are all from Columbia and Peru.



Just a rather obvious word of warning though... don’t buy any of these fish in soft water and put them straight into hard. Acclimatise them gradually.

Nice list; the Characins are my favorite fish, maybe because of the fact that I have soft water, and have many to choose from....

That being said, I did not know that Colombians preferred harder water

 

[Ichthys]

That being said, I did not know that Colombians preferred harder water

I don’t know if they prefer it, but they’re from a river basin in northern Colombia just south of Panama, so it’s in both soft and hard water in its natural range.
Fishbase doesn’t give water parameters for it. I must have got those from seriouslyfish.

 

[Ram419]

You got a bad deal from whomever sold those tetras as rummys. I'm assuming it was online. Not good.

No actually it was at a local fish store. I didn't even think twice to look at them before buying. There were a lot of rummy-nose and neon tetra in the same tank at the store so I just told the salesperson to grab 7. I will be sure to be more observant next time.

 

[Slaphppy7]

No actually it was at a local fish store. I didn't even think twice to look at them before buying. There were a lot of rummy-nose and neon tetra in the same tank at the store so I just told the salesperson to grab 7. I will be sure to be more observant next time.

OT, but just noticed, you are in Houston, always nice to see another fellow Texan join the forum...

 

[Ram419]

OT, but just noticed, you are in Houston, always nice to see another fellow Texan join the forum...

Hi! Yes, I've lived in Houston for a long time now. Thanks!

 

[Back in the fold]

I recognise them, I've seen them, but I'm drawing a blank on the name and it's driving me nuts! But I know that @Slaphppy7 is a tetra fan, so I'm betting he or @WhistlingBadger will know!

Me too ! It’s right on the tip of my tongue and I can’t spit it out. I’ve seen this fish before somewhere.
Achtung ! No fair goggling this to find out. Use your head.