The Rosy Tetra, Hyphessobrycon rosaceus,
is one of the most beautiful of all the many beautiful tetras. It
comes from South America, from Guyana and Brazil. The Rosy Tetra is
sometimes spelt Rosey Tetra. It reaches a length of about four cm (one
and a half inches).
Water Conditions
The Rosy Tetra is a tropical fish, and a
temperature of between 24 and 28 degrees C (75 and 82 degrees F) is
suitable. In the wild they have soft moderately acidic water, but will
adjust to neutral or even slightly alkaline conditions with a moderate
level of hardness as adults. These are conditions that suit a large
number of other community fish.
A school of Rosy Tetras is quite suitable
for a community tank of small fish at 24 degrees C (75 degrees F), with
moderate hardness and a pH near neutral (7).
If not stressed the Rosy Barb has brilliant colours. There should be some plants as well as room for swimming.
Companions
The Rosy Tetra is a schooling fish and I suggest a
minimum of six be kept in an aquarium. In a school, the Rosy Tetra is
a peaceful fish and can be kept with other peaceful fish of a similar
size. These includeNeon Tetras and Cardinal Tetras. They would probably also be OK
with Siamese Fighting Fish, Guppies and Endlers Guppies.
Avoid large, aggressive or predatory fish. Even if
they do not eat the Rosy Barbs, bullying will adversely affect this
beautiful fish’s colour.
Sexing
Both sexes
of the Rosy Tetra are extremely beautiful fish.
The Male has
a longer and more pointed Dorsal fin than the female. The female’s dorsal fin is more rounded. Both sexes have some black on the dorsal fin,
but the female’s is a smaller spot but much more intense and well defined black
area with white above and below the black.
Females usually have a very small area of red above the white area above
the black spot.
The red
parts of the male tend to be brighter.
The female gets distinctly fatter when getting eggs in her body.
When in
breeding condition the colours of both sexes become brighter, but the male’s
colours intensify more. Once you have
observed both the sexes of this fish, they are very easy to tell apart.
Breeding
Water
The Rosy Tetra
comes from soft acid water and this appears to be necessary to breed them
successfully. Some people have reported
spawning in harder tap water, but then found little success in hatching the
eggs and raising the babies.
Most Tetras
are group spawners, but it is quite possible to spawn a single pair of Rosy
Tetras.
Conditioning
Condition
your pair separately with a variety of rich food like frozen Blood Worms, Daphnia
and Mosquito Larvae as well as good quality dry foods.
This fish
will eat even very small foods, and I sometimes use fry food like HBH Fry Bites
for the adults. This type of food tends
to be particularly high in protein and fat.
Temperature
A suitable
spawning temperature is about 27 degrees C (80 degrees F). This is a little higher than I recommend for
keeping these fish. The increase in
temperature, combined with the softer, more acid water and the bringing
together of the male and female fish should be enough to stimulate spawning.
Spawning
The Rosy
Tetra will scatter 100 or more eggs over fine leaved plants. Usually this will happen early in the
morning.
Raising the Fry
The babies
should be free swimming about 5 days after being laid. The water should continue to be soft and acid
until the babies are at least 3 months old when you can change gradually to
harder tap water.
The babies
need very small food like Infusoria (Protozoa) at first. This can be supplemented with the finest
commercial fry food, and dried egg yolk.
They are
fairly slow growing fish. The babies
benefit from live foods at all stages of growth. In a week or so they will be big enough to
try giving then the finest screened Daphnia.
Pest Fish
Do not release any fish into a place it is not native to.
