Mixed tetras?

[Delphinus]

Is mixing tetras such as bloodfins, serpae's and cardinals a no-no?

[chandigz]

That shouldn't be a problem.

[Veng68]

serpae's can be a little nippy. but generally peaceful.

Cheers,
Vic

[Delphinus]

Ok that's what I thought too. But here's my problem, I bought some cardinals (10) but they are (well, were) pretty small. I have a single bloodfin left out of the original school of 5 (they got tetra disease and I lost 4 of them), and 4 serpaes in the tank. The tank, BTW, is a heavily planted 65g.

Anyhow I bought 10 because of the small size and that I was expecting some losses (I seem to have very poor luck with tetras). But I wasn't expecting the complete annihilation of the cardinals. The bloodfin and the serpaes were completely relentless, so I netted them and sumped them for a couple days. I let the bloodfin out of his "timeout" last night. Yesterday I had 6 cardinals left, today I seem to be down to 3, and the little bugger is chasing them like crazy.

I'm a little broken up over it, I've always wanted to do cardinals or neons and waited 12 years with a FW tank to try some and now it's just not working out at all.

There's also a school of 8 glowlight tetras in there who seem to be peaceful. Yesterday they were letting the 6 cardinals school with them. Today the 3 I could find were scattered in different spots, hiding in the plants. I think it's the bloodfin.

Or maybe they're just too small. I dunno. I wish I could buy them at a larger size than 3/4". I want to try again if I find some bigger ones (>1") but now I'm reluctant given how badly the introduction went with the others.

The serpaes are still in timeout for the time being. I'm trying to be optimistic about the remaining 3 cardinals but .. part of me also thinks they pretty much have no hope.

[Leah]

Yup from my freshwater day's id say it is a no no. It would be better to keep cardinals with
neon's and glowlight's more of the mild mannered schooling ones. Had my troubles mixing them as well.

[shrimpchips]

The serpaes should be fine with cardinals/neons. The bloodfin will, as you have found, rip the shat out of the little ones.

I've found that most of the deep bodied tetras are relentless fin nippers/fish killers. I once had a single large Rio tetra that killed everything else in a 20g.

[Leah]

Maybe that is how it got the name blood fin.