Rummy Nose Tetra

The rummy-nose tetra (Hemigrammus bleheri) is named for the obvious feature: a blood-red flush across the whole head and gill plate, ending abruptly where the silver body begins. The tail is the other half of the picture, banded in black and white like a chessboard. It comes from the Rio Negro system in Brazil, and it schools more tightly than almost any other aquarium fish, moving as a single object rather than a loose group.

Aquarium care

• Reaches roughly 5 cm.
• Peaceful and entirely community safe.
• Keep eight or more; tight schooling behaviour only appears in numbers.
• Prefers soft, acidic, warm water and a mature, stable tank.
• Mid-water swimmer.
• Omnivorous: small flake, micro pellets, frozen daphnia and bloodworm.

The red head is worth watching for its own sake. It fades when water quality slips or the fish is stressed, and returns as conditions improve, which makes this species a useful early warning system in a planted tank. Keep it with corydoras, otocinclus, dwarf cichlids and other small, calm South Americans. It is not a fish for a newly set up aquarium.

Stock rotates with each shipment, and livestock is sold for local pickup at our Lethbridge store. See what is in on our tetras page.