Ember tetra

Water parameters

Tolerated range for this species. Aim for the middle of each band rather than the extremes.

Tank and habitat

Substrate: any.

Behavior

Plant interaction: plant safe.

Feeding

Tiny mouth limits food size. Crushed flake, micro pellets (0.5–0.8 mm), frozen cyclops, and baby brine shrimp. Standard-sized flake needs to be ground between fingers before feeding. They pick at food in the water column and rarely take anything from the surface film or the bottom. Two small feedings per day. Color improves noticeably on a diet that includes carotenoid-rich foods (spirulina, daphnia).

Compatibility

• Peaceful with everything but too small to house with any fish that could eat them. Even a hungry honey gourami might take a shot at a 2 cm tetra.
• Best kept with other nano species: pygmy corys, chili rasboras, celestial pearl danios, small shrimp. Basically anything under 4 cm.
• Safe with all dwarf shrimp. Too small to eat even baby cherry shrimp.
• Not a good tankmate for active or boisterous fish (danios, barbs) that will outcompete them for food and stress them with constant movement.

Origin and habitat

A nano characin from central Brazil, described by Gery and Uj in 1987 from the Rio das Mortes, a major tributary of the Araguaia in Mato Grosso state. Within the wider Araguaia drainage it favours slow tributaries, backwaters, and oxbow lakes with calm, plant-filled shallows rather than open channels. The species name honours Amanda Bleher, the explorer and naturalist whose son Heiko collected the fish and named it for his mother. Classification is unsettled: the species has long sat in the family Characidae, while recent taxonomic work moves many Hyphessobrycon into Acestrorhamphidae, so reputable sources currently disagree on the family. Records give a maximum standard length near 2 cm, among the smallest fish in the hobby, though some retailers quote about 2.5 cm total length. The body is a translucent orange that deepens to a glowing ember-red in settled adults, strongest over dark substrate in soft, slightly acidic water with a varied diet. Males tend to show richer copper-red colour, while females run paler and fuller-bodied. It is a peaceful shoaling fish that looks washed out in bare shop tanks and colours up once given a planted home.

Breeding

An egg-scattering free spawner that breeds without much prompting in a soft, acidic, densely planted tank. The pair scatters adhesive eggs among fine-leaved plants such as java moss, and reported clutches run from roughly 30 to 60 eggs. Hatching takes about a day to a day and a half, and the fry are free-swimming a few days later. Adults eat eggs and fry when they come across them, but in a thickly planted tank with no other fish a few young survive and a small colony can build up on its own. Newly hatched fry are tiny and take infusoria or a liquid fry food at first, then baby brine shrimp and finely crushed dry food as they grow.

Common problems

Not a delicate fish once settled, but it has no tolerance for ammonia or nitrite, and abrupt large water changes that swing temperature or pH cause stress, so new arrivals should be acclimated slowly. Faded colour is the usual complaint and is almost always down to stress, thin diet, or harsh lighting rather than illness. The orange reads as a deep glow over dark substrate under warm light and looks pale over bright substrate under cool light. Most fish live a few years in good conditions.

Bioload

Further reading

• Why your angelfish ate your neons
• The schooling number matters more than you think
• Keeping shrimp with fish: what actually works