Good schooling dither for GT

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DarylMac

DarylMac

Piranha
MFK Member
Oct 22, 2016
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I recently redecorated my 135 to be a home for a pair (or harem) of A. Rivulatus.

I was originally going for a pseudo biotope, but have found fish from Ecuador to be difficult to locate.

I have some aging wild caught Bleeding Heart Tetras, which I believe are from that region, but I cannot seem to source anymore.

I called an importer who gets fish from Ecuador from time to time and he told me he typically doesn't get shipments until late spring or summer.

Not sure I can wait that long so I am open to other options.

I have no interest in Silver Dollars or Congo Tetras -but the Buenos Ares Tetra is appealing. Would it work? Are there better options out there?

In the meantime I'll keep trying to grow my group of Bleeding hearts, but let me know if there are other viable options.

Thanks in advance!
 
I can't remember if I kept Buenos Aires or Colombian tetra, but they were great dither fish for me.

*Pretty sure it was Columbian
 
I agree that rainbow fish are nice looking, but aren't they Australian?

Even though I can't recreate a true biotope I'd like to keep it to the same continent.

The only exception I have at the moment are Siamese Algae Eaters. I've had these guys for like 10 or 12 years from when I used to run a planted tank with CO2 etc. They were my main Algae Eaters until I picked up some L144's and found out what a great job the bushy nose Plecos do at eating Algae. Now that I have L144's the SAE's are expendable- but there's not much market for such old fish. So I'll keep them until they go to the big aquarium in the sky.

Saw some Buenos Ares Tetras at my LFS today - they were super cheap. I didn't get them though. I'm holding out hope I'll find some Bleeding Heart Tetras.

But I'm going to Google Columbia tetra right now too.
 
Okay I'm liking what I am reading about the Colombian Tetra... apparently very similar in appearance to the Ecuadorean Tetra - which is nice and biotopish for my purposes. Has the same general shape as a Bleeding Heart Tetra, which is good because all the noodle shaped Tetras like Neons/Cardinals are just too easy for other fish to eat.
 
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Not sure if they are in the same waters as the cichlids, but I have used Columbian blue and Buenos Aires tetras as dithers with success in the past on other cichlid species. If you start with small terrors and good sized tetras, it should work, at least for many months. If you start with decent sized cichlids, the tetras may get eaten. The BA tetras were the more aggressive of the 2 tetra species when I had them. I liked the color on the Columbians better. Both grow to decent size for tetras.
 
I found the colombian tetra to be a very fast fish, and a very good hider. When I used them in the past it was with a 10 1/2 in GT. I threw a school of 10-15 in with him. He may have got one when first introduced, but I kept that school for a long time with him. They ate all his crumbs which was cool. I never fed them specifically.

I remember having hell of a time netting them out when I upgraded tanks.
 
I had this problem, biotope correct tetras are hard to find for rivulatus.
Bleeding hearts are found in Peru but I don't think their range extends to Ecuador.
There are species of giant silver hatchet fish in Ecuador.
I gave up with tetras for my tank,but like you Daryl, I wanted to stay as true as I could to the biotope theme.
In the end I forgot about tetras and went for a shoal of hoplo catfish.There are species of hoplo catfish found in the same waters as rivulatus, admittedly not the species commonly seen in fish stores but close to the mark.
Hoplo's had not really appealed to me before,but being a close match to a biotope correct tank mate, I got some.
They are perfect fish to keep with Rivs, they act as cleaner fish in the wild and eat parasites off larger fish,they do this in aquariums. My gt seemed to enjoy a good hoplo cleaning service and would gladly allow the Hoplo's to give them a good going over.
I soon became as fond of the cats as I did the cichlids.I can't recommend them enough as tank mates for rivulatus.

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