Nippy tetras

[Luananeko]

Has anyone else had issues with their White Skirt Tetras going on chasing/nipping sprees? My school of 8 in my 36 gallon bowfront were fine until a few weeks ago, but lately they've been a bit crazy. It looks like one of them has gotten rather egg heavy and is the usual chase target, but anyone that gets in the way is fair game. It's gotten so bad that they've decimated their white cloud and neon tetra tankmates... Down to 2 and 3 respectively of their original schools of 6. Two of my Zebra Danios have wasted away as well, I suspect due to stress from the chasing/nipping. Water parameters are all normal. Nitrates jumped a little when I started losing tetras and minnows due to not always finding the corpses immediately, but never got above 40 ppm.

Any suggestions on how to calm them down? I'm okay replacing the white clouds with something else (was considering emperor tetras), but the neons were doing really well at filling out the lower middle of the tank...

 

[FWFishTanks]

I have never experienced these, then again, I haven't owned skirts before. They do have a reputation to be nippy. They have enough space and a large school, so maybe it is caused by one individual fish, and the others just follow that one fish. Keep an eye out for that maybe that will work. You may want to try tiger barbs or Colombian tetras, as these two tetras can stand their own against white skirts usually.

 

[Rivercats]

Usually a larger school of Skirts keep aggression within the school but if they are wanting to spawn this can change aggression levels in males. Adding a school or larger tetra's such as Emperor tetra's or Barbs may be the answer. Or you can think about adding a pair or Kribensis or even something like 4-6 Angelicus Loaches. They would both stay lower and out of the way of the tetra's which can make a big difference.

 

[Luananeko]

Usually a larger school of Skirts keep aggression within the school but if they are wanting to spawn this can change aggression levels in males. Adding a school or larger tetra's such as Emperor tetra's or Barbs may be the answer. Or you can think about adding a pair or Kribensis or even something like 4-6 Angelicus Loaches. They would both stay lower and out of the way of the tetra's which can make a big difference.

Barbs don't really appeal to me, but I was considering the Emperors to replace the minnows. Would Cardinals be better options than the Neons? Same colors, but maybe the larger size could help them stand up to the White Skirts better? I can also bump the White Skirt numbers up to 11 if you think higher numbers would help. Not really interested in adding loaches or Kribs since I have frogs, 2 dwarf crays, some amanos, and snails for substrate dwellers.

 

[Rivercats]

Cardinals wouldn't do any better than the Neons. You could bump the number of Skirts up but that is no guarantee the aggression will lessen. You could do other more aggressive tetra's such as Serpae tetras, l like the long finned ones, Emperor's, and many others. The Red Serpae's would add more color IMO than the Emperor's. Diamond tetra's are another good choice but pic's don't do them justice. I have a school of 12 which I plan on upping. Their scales actually glitter under the light just like diamonds and the males dorsal fin continues to grow and will get very long as they age.

 

[Luananeko]

Cardinals wouldn't do any better than the Neons. You could bump the number of Skirts up but that is no guarantee the aggression will lessen. You could do other more aggressive tetra's such as Serpae tetras, l like the long finned ones, Emperor's, and many others. The Red Serpae's would add more color IMO than the Emperor's. Diamond tetra's are another good choice but pic's don't do them justice. I have a school of 12 which I plan on upping. Their scales actually glitter under the light just like diamonds and the males dorsal fin continues to grow and will get very long as they age.

Well, this is for my actinic/GloTank, so Serpae Tetras wouldn't show up very well under that lighting... I was thinking the white top half of the Emperors and their iridescent stripe would catch the light pretty well. Silver fish usually disappear under the blue light, so I'm not sure how well the Diamond tetras would work... Hmmm...