my new pink-tail
- Thread starter Backfromthedead
- Start date
I hand fed my old one years back my latest one was way to skittish and brained itself
I am contemplating a group of yellow fins instead
I am contemplating a group of yellow fins instead
Ive been on the lookout for yellow fins for awhile now. Seem to be more scarce these days. My original plan for the tank was a group of PTC and group of loaches now i have 30 loaches and 1 PTC lol. I dont know how this guy would act with the yellow fins though.
They grow to about ten inches, and shoot off when freaked at two hundred miles per hour. So they really need lots of swimming surface area.
I would say no. They are skittish even when theyre calm. In a 55g your PTC would have a persistently smashed snout until one day it gives itself a cerebral hemmorhage. Hell, even
celebrist
said his brained itself and i believe those were kept in a 400g+ if im not mistaken.
Certainly not!!!
You've got to have kept these fish and experienced first hand what they are capable of doing to fully appreciate what a bad idea that is. They occasionally go absolutely nuts if startled by footfall or shadows etc.
They dash around the tank at breakneck speed, banging into whatever gets in their path. So small tanks are a no no, and I'll stick my neck out and say all glass tanks generally can be problematic with this species and I would never keep another one in an all glass tank.
I say this because when mine was in my 180g all glass tank it would have several "episodes" on a weekly basis.
But when I put it in my 360g fiberglass tank with just a single viewing panel, it quietened down and never freaked out at all. It was super placid. The difference was like night and day.
In my experience this species simply does not do well with noticeable outside disturbance, but can be a great addition to a more secluded set up.
Ive often wondered, as ive heard rumors, whether a group dynamic would make them much more calm. I read so much suggesting they be kept in schools but very rarely ever see a keeper with a tank full of them.
But the bigger tank helps obviously. My 7x2x2 seems ok for now but if this fish gets to 10"+ who knows.
Ill also go out on a limb and say that some floating vegetation/driftwood goes a long way in calming them down. Ive observed If they can quickly dart behind some cover up top then there are less kamikaze stunts overall.
They also seem to appreciate some areas of strong flow in their tank and prefer temps between 70-80F ime.
