# Caribes And Tetras Together



## Eric99 (Nov 29, 2006)

I have 8 Caribes with the smallest being about 7" and the largest being 10"+ in a 180 gallon tank with about 30 miscellaneous Tetras. They have been living fine together for well over two months now. I figured I would take a chance to try this since the Piranhas have gotten to the size where it really shouldn't be worth their time to mess with them and it worked! Actually I have some little worms in the sand and the Caribes will get a little spooked sometimes and stir up some sand releasing some of the little worms where the Tetras shoot over to gobble them up so they do a good thing for my tank as well. The worm population has drastically been reduced.


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## Piranha_man (Jan 29, 2005)

That's awesome, but if you have "worms" in your sand, perhaps you need to tidy the tank up a bit, like performing some gravel vacs.


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## Eric99 (Nov 29, 2006)

Piranha_man said:


> That's awesome, but if you have "worms" in your sand, perhaps you need to tidy the tank up a bit, like performing some gravel vacs.


I do a 75% water change once a week and try to vacuum the gravel as best as I can but I never get all the worms. I feed the Piranhas every other day or once every three days once in a while.


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## Piranha_man (Jan 29, 2005)

75% water changes?

That's asking a lot from your bacteria cultures...
Have you tested your parameters lately?


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## Eric99 (Nov 29, 2006)

Piranha_man said:


> 75% water changes?
> 
> That's asking a lot from your bacteria cultures...
> Have you tested your parameters lately?


Yeah I guess I should do less from now on. I did have a little nitrite problem and I thought it was because I took a lot of big live plants out of there.


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## Piranha_man (Jan 29, 2005)

Yeah, I figure anything less than 50% is okay providing you have adequate biological filtration...

So hey, got any pics/video of your setup?
Sounds pretty badass!


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## Eric99 (Nov 29, 2006)

I just tested my water. Nitrite=0 Nitrate=20 so thats much better than a few weeks ago. My alkalinity is zero and the ph is acidic though.I never really have much of those two any every time I tried any buffers they didn't do much of anything for me.


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## Eric99 (Nov 29, 2006)

View attachment 200319
View attachment 200320
View attachment 200321


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## e46markus (Dec 9, 2010)

It would be neat to see some pics with that many tetras living amongst your p's, have you posted any recently?


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## Eric99 (Nov 29, 2006)

Tank.

Filter

It won't let me upload any more pics. I guess they are too large.


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## e46markus (Dec 9, 2010)

Really nice setup man!


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## Smoke (Sep 8, 2010)

Cool. I've got something similar going on with my Manny tanks. I got a nice shoal of black skirt tetras in my 125G and a mixed shoal of tetras (black skirt/buenos aires etc.) & pleco in my other. So far they have been living in peace and even act like P's sometimes. Very cool to see that it's working with your Pygos!


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## Piranha_man (Jan 29, 2005)

LOVE your tank man!


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## CLUSTER ONE (Aug 2, 2006)

Looks good. How long have the tetras been there?


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## Inflade (Mar 24, 2006)

tank looks awesome. keep the waterchanges at 40 percent. or take 25 percent every 5 days.

you could also looking at adding a Canister filter. like an xp3, or an fx5 for more bio filtration.

other then that, great set up.


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## Eric99 (Nov 29, 2006)

No more filters lol! There's really no room for that anywhere. The 75 gallon sump should be fine. It also houses plants and a plant light.

The Tetras have been in there 2 months but I am real confident they won't be messed with.


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## Dolphinswin (Jun 26, 2010)

its cariba.


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## Joe.G (Dec 20, 2010)

I had Tetras with my Reds, I started ith Six and all was fine for 2 Months then they started picking them of, I am down to 1. White ones were first to go.


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## Ibanez247 (Nov 9, 2006)

Cool set up. Ive also had luck with tetras with larger pygos. I had 5 black neons with 3 reds for 2 years. Ive kept cherry barbs with pygos as well.


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## warpet (May 21, 2004)

e46markus said:


> Really nice setup man!


+1 nice job. Those pianha are so happy they put up with the Tetra's


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## sixball (Oct 29, 2010)

Love the setup as well. The freshwater refugium doesn't get much love!


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## Joe.G (Dec 20, 2010)

My last one is still hanging in there.


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## CURIUM (Dec 6, 2010)

Think I can pull this off with 5 4" Pygos in a 75 Gallon?


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## Mr. Hannibal (Feb 21, 2003)

Nice set up... i also keep some tiny tetras with my Ps...


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## Piro (Dec 1, 2008)

Your caribas are looking very healthy. Beautifull fish! I wish other fish could live with my Caribe too, but they never last long. Tetras only stay alive for a month (max.) The only fish that haven't been eaten in a short time are Guppy's (endler) But I think the only reason that they are still alive is that they breed so fast and they stay in the upper regions of the tank. The biggest ones always seem to disapear after a while. 
...Ooh... there is one other fishspecies that will stay alive with my caribe; a hoplias malabaricus. But this one was starting to attack my cariba when it grew larger, so I sold it. I think it would have worked in a larger tank though.


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## Guest (Apr 4, 2011)

Nice set up. I keep neons, rummynose and rainbow tetras with my pygos.


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## leg89 (Dec 10, 2008)

really really really....really really nice! haha simple and sharp, nice fish and i'm sure the tetras are a great plus as to life into the tank!

did i say i find it REALLY nice?


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