Crazy lemon tetras!

[Bruna75]

So my lfs finally got my lemon tetra order in and I picked them up yesterday evening, after acclimating them for over an hour mixing my tank wAter with their bag water every 15 min I netted them out and when I got the last one out they all schooled so pretty around my tank a couple times and then split up and the madness began! They started chasing every other fish in the tank except for the panda corys and Bolivian ram:/ so I turned the lights off in the living room since the tank light was already off and they calmed down for the rest of the night. Woke up and they were swimming together again nicely and then I turned the lights on and the craziness started again! Their tank mates are:
1 cardinal
6 neons
5 boesemi rainbows (they use to be the bullies but even they are hiding now)
4 panda corys
3 platy
1 black Molly
And the 8 crazy lemons.
They are in a 75, I thought they were suppose to be peaceful lol. Are they still getting use to their new home? Should I get more plants? I have about 9 live ones in there now but they are all medium small.

 

[Rivercats]

This may or may not help but do you have really intense bright light? Reason I'm asking is I have T5HO's and Metal Halides, I also had 10K bulbs in the halides and my tetras especially hated it. They would scatter and dart around for deep plant cover but as soon as the halides went off and only the T5's were on they would calm down and school around just fine. A few days ago I changed out my 10K bulbs to 6000K bulbs which is a much softer, less intense light and now the tetras are acting normal. The reason I am telling you this is the fact that the lemons are going crazy when you turn the lights on. Adding more plants is a good idea regardless. And normally Lemons are peaceful schoolers that if there is any bickering/aggression it is amoungst themselves. I think if you can tone down your lighting, like even using some floating plants to subdue it, they might settle down. Its not uncommon for fish to go alittle wonky when they are first added but I've never seen it last more than an hour or so.

 

[Borderlesscott]

My 7 Lemon Tetra's are always hyper active around my tank with light on, occasionally they have little disputes with each other but never seen them annoy any other tank mate.

 

[Bruna75]

My light is the one that came with the tank from petsmart. The back of the light says 120 volt 40 watt 60 hz 48 " deluxe florescent aquarium reflector. I know nothing about lighting but from what I read here that stock lighting stinks. Lol.

 

[Bruna75]

I can not find any floating live plants by me :/ I will have to resort to plastic ones my petsmart only has those ones in tubes and my lfs down the street has snails. And those CREEP me out big time :O I am petrified of them. I don't know why:/

 

[Bruna75]

Is there a certain bulb I should be looking for when I go to petsmart tomorrow? Or will the floating plants be enough? I just don't want to make two trips there since it is 30 min away and toys r us is down the street and my son thinks every time we pass it up he needs to go in. LOL. I try to keep my trips there down to once a week and the lfs store down the street prices are outrageous. Like double price for everything outrageous :O

 

[Rivercats]

If you have stock lighting then it's not too bright. Try the floating plants and hopefully they will calm down in a few days. It's just weird they are doing that.

 

[Bruna75]

If you have stock lighting then it's not too bright. Try the floating plants and hopefully they will calm down in a few days. It's just weird they are doing that.

Thanks and I thought the rainbows were bad. The lemons give them a run for their money :O i had the husband pick up some ugly tall fake plants to break up the front some more. They seem a bit calmer but these plants are ugly and I want then out. LOL. Hopefully the floating ones won't be so bad

 

[Rivercats]

Do you have any pond stores by you? They may have some type of floaters. Or post a note in the classifieds here and see if someone has something. There are also some easy stem plants and even water sprite that you could get and float and it will look much nicer than fake ones.

 

[Bruna75]

Ok thanks I didn't even think of posting in the classifieds! Going to do that now