Geophagus compatibility with tetras

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Kinbote

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Feb 1, 2011
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New Zealand
The books I've read say things like 'relatively peaceful with similar sized fishes', but I've seen videos on youtube of people who have geos in with cardinals, and presumably that lasted at least long enough to record...

Anyone have much experience with this? I'm looking at mixing (currently small) geophagus altifrons with rosy tetras and possibly cardinals and pencilfish.
 
In my experience, altifrons will eat small fish like neons/cardinals.
 
Kinbote said:
Hmm. First hand experience?
Click to expand...

Yes. I've only kept altifrons once (about 5" specimens). One of the females pretty much wiped out the neon shoal I had in there with them.

Kept many G.steindachneri though, and these have never shown any inclination to eat small fish.
 
I have found Leucosticas to be fine with tetras. Altifrons get a bit larger and have bigger mouths. I have seen pics of Altifrons that have choked on tetras and even torpedo barbs, can be fatal for both fish.
 
I also had a G. altifrons that ate the rummy noses it was housed with. He was very small when I got him and had been raised with them but as soon as he got to a large size he turned into a David Copperfield.
 
I had discus, G. orange head Tapajos and cardinal tetras in the same tank. The number of cardinals went from 50 to a few over several months. I thought it was the discus...... removed the discus, the last few cardinals still went missing. I guess they either died on their own or the orange heads ate them.

I've since switched to N. palmeri (emperor tetra) and they are doing well with Geos. Actually fairly attractive themselves.
 
Thanks for the responses, guys. Seriouslyfish says this about the altifrons: 'Unless breeding this species is surprisingly peaceful and will not predate on fishes larger than a few mm in length', but that's obviously not such a common experience. They also mention that they're one of the most frequently misidentified members of the genus, which makes me wonder how likely it is that we're all talking about the same fish.
 
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