# question about black phantom tetras



## Revolution1221 (Apr 20, 2010)

so ive always liked black phantom tetras they are about one of the only tetras i actually like. so i was just wondering how are they tepermant wise are they like some other tetras that can be pretty nippy? how big do they get and how big of a school do i need. we have about 6 of them here im assuming that should be sufficient to start off with. how big do they get? also one of them is different from the others it looks exactly the same except it has a red anal fin red pectorals and i think red cadual fin? whatever the din is behind the dorsal.


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## Tallonebball (Apr 6, 2009)

The red fin means Female. The males will get really long flowing fins and will stay jet black, really pretty. 6 is just fine as long as you have way more females than males, males will fight a lot in the presence of females. They don't really get any bigger than 2 to 3.5 inches. I've love them too man there is just something really pretty about them. I have 10 in my Discus tank.


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## Revolution1221 (Apr 20, 2010)

sweet i noticed there is another with red fins so there are 4 black and 2 red since there is more males what should i do? i can get more with our next order would they be fine until then? i am most concered about them picking on my other fish but im assuming they wont since u have them with discus lol.


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## lookralphsbak (Jun 16, 2009)

I have 2 in my tank and I'm thinking of returning them. All they do is hide at the bottom. They don't really swim around and I think it's because they are stressed because they are in a tank with 6 black skirts. I don't know if buying 4 more will help get them to become more comfortable.


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## Revolution1221 (Apr 20, 2010)

having a proper school will most certainly make a fish feel more comfortable in a tank. think safety in numbers. they will all swim around together. mine are very active fish just swimming from one are of the tank to the other.


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## lookralphsbak (Jun 16, 2009)

Revolution1221 said:


> having a proper school will most certainly make a fish feel more comfortable in a tank. think safety in numbers. they will all swim around together. mine are very active fish just swimming from one are of the tank to the other.


I have good news, I fed my fish around 20 mins ago and the female black phantom joined the black skirts in feeding, even getting slightly aggressive. This is awesome news considering just 2 days ago they were hiding in the back catching crumbs that fell near them. I was so excited to see her swimming to the top of the tank. I actually thought "man I have to post this on the forum!". The male probably hasn't gotten used to it but I'm sure adding more fish will help make him more comfortable. I'm heading to petco right now to buy 4 or 5 more. I'm thinking 1 more male and 4 or 5 females. I'm actually gonna check the stocking calculator right now to see how stocked my tank will be with the addition of 4-5 more. Anyway, thanks


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## DTetras2 (Jan 20, 2010)

Rev, ya, I'm sure they'll be fine by the time they get in more BPT's. Black phantom tetras are known to be very peaceful to all fish so you can also wait and see how they all do together. I have 1 female black phantom tetra that as soon as it was let out of it's bag schooled with the 2 serpae tetras I have in my 10 gallon tank and they've all been great together Lookralphsbak, do NOT go to petco to get any fish, they can't be trusted with fish. Go to either the general freshwater or bettas forums and look at my posts about petco and then rethink going to petco and instead go to your LFS that isn't a chain.


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## lookralphsbak (Jun 16, 2009)

DTetras2 said:


> Rev, ya, I'm sure they'll be fine by the time they get in more BPT's. Black phantom tetras are known to be very peaceful to all fish so you can also wait and see how they all do together. I have 1 female black phantom tetra that as soon as it was let out of it's bag schooled with the 2 serpae tetras I have in my 10 gallon tank and they've all been great together Lookralphsbak, do NOT go to petco to get any fish, they can't be trusted with fish. Go to either the general freshwater or bettas forums and look at my posts about petco and then rethink going to petco and instead go to your LFS that isn't a chain.


I read was reading the posts about petco on this forum. I've read about how they have sick fish in their tanks as well as unclean tanks in general. The petco I go to in Manhattan is actually very clean. The fish there seem to be very healthy and I've never had issues with them. The place I find to be gross is Petland Discounts. I haven't purchased fish from there in a long time but I remember the store being very dirty and the tanks being dirty as well


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## Revolution1221 (Apr 20, 2010)

the thing about petco and petsmart is even tho there are some stores that have good employees that take care of their fish and tanks i dont think they are allowed to mark fish as not for sale. the petsmart here in town buys their fish from the same distributor we get our feeders from. they have really low prices but there is a reason we only get feeders from them because there fish are always always always sick. we have to make a minimum order and the feeders alone dont cover that so we end up getting a couple other fish from them and let me tell u they have arrived with some pretty nasty diseases and actually recently one fish we got from them wiped out 1 tank and another half a tank but luckily we were able to stop it when it infected a 3rd tank. so we usually just take the fish we get from them and put them immediately into quarentine and dose with medicine. lately we have been making our minimum order with saltwater stuff like crustaciens and anemones because those arnt really ever that bad. but point being knowing how bad those fish are u go to petsmart and u never see a tank not for sale when i know damn well they get sick fish from them. u come to our store and when we have a sick tank we put big signs on the glass that say not for sale. also they run off contingency systems at petco and petsmart so 1 sick fish has the potential to get all there fish sick.


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## lookralphsbak (Jun 16, 2009)

Yea I'm gonna start buying from local stores now. I went to petco today and I told the dude I wanted 1 male and 3 female black phantoms and he scooped up 3 males and 1 female. I corrected him and he put back the males and scooped up 3 females, I thought whatever, I'll just have 1 male and 5 females in the tank.


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## DTetras2 (Jan 20, 2010)

Yup, that's right, how do you not know the difference between female and male black phantom tetras?!?! It's just so obvious! Petco shold deffinitely have people take quiz type things so they know who to place for fish. They're just so stupid!


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## Revolution1221 (Apr 20, 2010)

lol i didnt know because ive never asked before and never really paid much attention to them. but when i dont know i make it clear to people and say idk the difference but if u do then ill get them.


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## emc7 (Jul 23, 2005)

I didn't know.

The quality of chain stores varies a lot. There is a very good Petland here and some of the Petland people know something about fish, but others know nothing and just make stuff up. What makes me mad is signs that are wrong about basic stuff like how big fish get. I don't care where you get your fish, but everyone should quarantine everything new, even plants. There is some really horrible fish disease in the distribution systems.


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