Golden Tetra

Care at a glance

Overview

The golden tetra is a peaceful shoaling fish best kept in a group of at least six, which keeps it confident and shows off its bright sides. It swims mostly in the middle of the tank and gets along easily with other small, calm community fish, plants, and gentle bottom dwellers. Give it a well-planted tank with some shade and open water to school in. It is an easy eater that does well on a quality flake rounded out with small frozen and live foods such as daphnia, brine shrimp, and bloodworm. A tank of around 75 liters or larger gives a group room to move.

In the wild

Golden tetras come from the coastal drainages of the Guianas and on into parts of Peru and Brazil, living in slow, soft, tannin-stained creeks and forest pools. Warm, gentle water suits them, so aim for 24 to 28 C with a pH from about 5.5 to 7.5 and soft to moderate hardness. A dark substrate, driftwood, dried leaves, and some floating cover mimic their shaded home and settle the fish, while a mature planted layout gives the shoal both cover and room to swim.

Good to know

The golden tetra belongs to Characidae, the American tetra family, and is a small, slim fish of about 5 to 6 cm. Wild fish carry a bright metallic gold sheen, while tank-bred ones are a plainer silver, a difference explained by biology rather than genetics. It is an egg-scattering species with no parental care and is regarded as hard to breed reliably in the aquarium, needing soft, acidic, dimly lit conditions to trigger spawning. Most golden colour seen in shops comes from wild-caught stock.

Did you know

The gold that gives this tetra its name is not really its own colour. In the wild it is caused by a skin reaction to a trematode parasite, which makes the fish lay down a golden layer of guanine as a defence. Tank-bred golden tetras never meet the parasite, so they stay a simple silver and lack the shine.

Related species

• 

  Red flush tetra

  Hemigrammus stictus

  2.4 in (6 cm)20 gal (75 L)73–81°F (23–27°C)

• 

  Rummy-nose tetra

  Hemigrammus rhodostomus

  2 in (5 cm)20 gal (75 L)75–81°F (24–27°C)

• 

  Garnet tetra

  Hemigrammus pulcher

  1.8 in (4.5 cm)20 gal (75 L)73–82°F (23–28°C)

• 

  Head-and-taillight tetra

  Hemigrammus ocellifer

  1.8 in (4.5 cm)17 gal (65 L)75–82°F (24–28°C)

• 

  Glowlight tetra

  Hemigrammus erythrozonus

  1.6 in (4 cm)18 gal (70 L)75–82°F (24–28°C)

• 

  January tetra

  Hemigrammus hyanuary

  1.6 in (4 cm)17 gal (65 L)73–81°F (23–27°C)