The Glass Bloodfin Tetra Fish

Tank requirements

This tetra comes from South America, the Amazon river, exactly from its affluent – Maderia. So the natural environment for them is tropical freshwater aquarium. This fish is easy to keep in aquarium with moderate hard water, about 10°dGH and with pH bit more than 7. They don´t get on well in soft and acid water, where they start getting white and they slowly die. The temperature can vary between 22 to 28°C. The aquarium has to have many hiding places, but also many places for swimming. These fish are little athlets and they need place for training. Glass bloodfin species is small, so they don’t require much place for living (however they need a lot of space for having fun), but they need company, and more fish you keep, more place they demand. And how large the aquarium should be? For example we have about 30 tetras in 81 L aquarium and they look happy, but we had about 20 tetras in the same aquarium and they were just fine too. Last, we had about 15 tetras in 54 L aquarium, but they had not much place for swimming.

The aquarium must be covered, because the Glass bloodfin is a very good jumper. The shape of the body is made of muscle and it’s speciality is fast swimming and jumping out of the aquarium when they are scared. This happens especially when you clean the tank, or if you put your hands into the fish bowl with or without any reason. This species needs to be kept in shoals, because it is a shy and fearful fish. Despite the previously mentioned fact, you should place your aquarium into a place, where you are or other people are often. It is because if the fish is accustomed to plenty of movement, it will be not as nervous as if it was in a quiet place. The scare of this fish is a problem a bit. It includes trying to jump from the tank when you are doing something inside, but they look like they were in panic and they try to hide in the face of you. They try to get into the substrate, into the plants and sometimes they stuck in there and they can´t get out of such place. I do even think, that they sometimes try to act dead, but I´m not sure. I don´t like when they are doing these things. I am afraid of their safety during such moments.

Sexing and description

They are from 5 to 6 cm long and they look really terrific in planted aquarium. It is because they have see-through body with red tail fin. They have an about half centimetre big spot on their gills. This spot is very nice, because it produces colours reflexing. Maybe one fish doesn´t look very good, but their strength and beauty is in amount. As they move in one shoal with their red tails, they really look nice. Glass bloodfin is maybe not for people who like plenty colours in their tanks. But these tetras look very natural especially in tanks with plenty of plants.

The male is smaller and slimmer than the female. Also, the female is bigger and rounder and she may have larger first anal fin with white beams.

The Glass bloodfin species likes every kind of food. Live, frozen, dried. We feed them flakes, which they like to eat from the surface together with Black skirt tetras. They look like little piranhas. But don´t think I don´t feed them often, I am feeding them two times a day, so they aren´t hungry. When we started with bloodfins, they did not take their food from the surface and they only ate food from the water. We give them granulated food and frozen food too. Bloodworms are guaranteed success.

This tetra prefers breeding in the morning hours, when the aquarium is lighted with sun and when they are in shoal, not in couple. The breeding tank shouldn´t be small, maybe 30x30x80 cm is optimal. Spawning happens under the water over or in the soft aquarium plants like Java moss or even between green silicone silk. During one spawn they can lay up to 200 or even 350 eggs. The eggs are clear and not very adhesive, only few stay stuck to the spawning place. The eggs usually fall down to the substrate. They eggs are about 0,90 mm long and they hatch by the temperature 27°C very soon, even after 14 - 15 hours and little fry are about 2,25 mm long. They detach sticky secretion on their heads and they try to stuck to the walls of the aquarium or on the plants on shaded places. Sometimes they stuck to the water surface. In the age of 84 or 85 hours they swim free. From this time you have to feed them with live nature food, or just hatched sea monkeys. The breeding behaviour is similar to the breeding behaviour of the Aphyocharax anisitsi and rathbuni species. They creep on the plants, aquarium glass or aquarium equipment with the bellies up side down. But they grow faster than anisitsi and ratgbuni. When they are 7 to 8 weeks old, they start to swim just like their parents in shoals in the whole aquarium. In this age they can be fed crushed TetraMin for instance. With good food they grow up after 4 to 8 months. If they get less food, they grow up after 8 to 10 months. You should take care, if they have crystal clean water, the water should not contain much nitrogenous and the pH should be about 7 to 7.8, all the time while the little things are juveniles.

This tetra needs to be kept in a species shoal. However they like the company of Black skirt tetra - Gymnocorymbus ternetzi, or Flame tetra - Hyphessobrycon flammeus. Be careful, if kept with neon tetras, Glass bloodfins will probably die. Maybe it is because of the fact that neons detach some kind of secretion which is acid and Glass bloodfins don´t like acid water. Black and Flame tetras like harder water just like bloodfins do. They can be kept with some aggressive fish too. I would recommend a fish with smaller mouth than bloodfins are. Generally, Glass bloodfin are very fast fish and it is difficult to catch them, especially in a big aquarium with lot of plants.