How Much Does Rummy-Nose Tetra Ownership Cost?

The rummy-nose tetra (Petitella bleheri, formerly Hemigrammus bleheri) is a slender schooling fish from the tannin-stained blackwater rivers of the Negro and Meta basins in South America. Adults reach about 2 inches (5 cm) and carry a bright red nose and head. It is kept in a school of 10 or more, and the long tank that school needs costs more than the fish themselves.

The Fish: $45 to $80 for a School of 12

Online sellers ask about $4 to $6.50 a fish before shipping, often in packs of 6, 9 or 12. Ten is the smallest school to buy, and 12 is the number priced here: a school of 12 comes to $45 to $80, with live-fish shipping charged on top. Buying in person can cost more, with one store listing them at $8.99 a fish.

Both the per-fish price and the school size sit above those of the ember tetra, so the fish line for a rummy-nose tank lands well above an ember school's.

Buy the full school in one go. Rummy-noses are one of the more tightly shoaling small tetras and do poorly in groups that are too small, so the whole school is one purchase.

Upfront Setup: $230 to $435 for a 36-Inch Tank

The tank is the largest line, and its length is what to shop by. Rummy-noses are active fish that swim back and forth the length of the tank, so buy a tank at least 36 inches (90 cm) long for a school of 10. That length comes as a 30 gallon (36 x 12 inches) or a 40 gallon breeder (36 x 18 inches). A 20 gallon long measures only 30 inches, and the rummy-nose tank setup guide lays out how to keep the full 36 inches open for swimming.

The heater is a necessity for a tropical fish held at 73 to 79°F (23 to 26°C), and it needs the wattage to warm 30 to 40 gallons. Filtration can stay gentle, which a sponge filter rated for the tank's volume covers. Live plants are not part of the rummy-nose's home rivers, but the fish settle well in a planted tank. The table prices three bags of black sand, or a dark fine gravel, for the 36-inch floor, and whatever goes down has to leave the pH alone: this fish's colors fade in alkaline water.

The liquid test kit pays for itself first by showing when the tank has finished cycling, which a kit reading settles and a calendar does not. A finished cycle is the single most important step when the tank is first set up. The kit also tracks pH, and this species prefers soft, acidic water: a pH of 5.5 to 7.0 and a hardness of 2 to 12 dGH. Hardness needs a separate GH test, and what raises or lowers GH and KH decides whether a given tap is worth softening. The kit has one more job with this fish: the red on the head fades when a rummy-nose is stressed or kept in poor water, so a washed-out school is the cue to test.

The Extras: A Spare Tank for Quarantine

Quarantine is the single most important step for every fish added. New rummy-noses spend at least 30 days in the bare tank priced above before they meet the display school, because in tropical fish, ich often shows up 1 to 3 weeks after shipping and the month gives it time to surface. That tank gets its own net and siphon, since nets and hoses shared with the display can carry the parasite across. The fish quarantine guide sets out how to run it.

Rummy-noses sometimes arrive carrying ich, and because 79°F is the top of their range, an outbreak is cleared with salt or medication and the heater goes no higher than 79°F, so a bottle of treatment is the likely extra spend.

The spare tank keeps working after the first school. Each later purchase, whether two replacements or a second dozen, starts its own 30 days while the display school waits, so topping up a school is a second quarantine as well as a second order.

Buying Checklist: Red Noses and a Healthy School

A healthy rummy-nose shows it in the head color, the body and the way it swims.

Wild fish are still part of the supply. From 2006 to 2015, Brazil's Amazonas state exported more than 142 million ornamental fish, and the rummy-nose made up 5.0% of them, over 7 million fish. That put it third, behind the cardinal tetra at 64.6% and its relative Paracheirodon simulans at 7.5%. Those exports have lost ground to fish bred in Asia, and they are expected to narrow to species that are not bred in large numbers in captivity, the rummy-nose among them.

Wild or tank-bred, a fish that passes the checklist still goes into the quarantine tank. The checklist only decides which fish go in.

Shipping Fish Online

A school ordered online spends the trip sealed in a bag, and the water changes on the way: the fishes' breathing and waste push the pH down and the ammonia up. Rummy-noses can also play dead in the bag, lying still until the bag is set down on a solid surface, when they right themselves. A pale head on arrival is the same short-lived fade new arrivals show in a shop.

Ongoing Costs: Food, Conditioner and Test Kit Refills

Rummy-noses are omnivores with small mouths. The staple is a small flake, granule or micro pellet, and the first supply in the table runs $5 to $10. An opened tub of dry food kept at room temperature should be thrown out after 2 months, so a small tub that the school finishes in that time is the better buy. Small live and frozen foods such as baby brine shrimp, daphnia and mosquito larvae add a modest recurring cost, and a varied menu like this brings out the best color. The school eats small portions at least once a day.

Water conditioner at $5 to $15 a bottle, power for the heater and filter, and test kit refills make up the rest. A planted rummy-nose tank needs a partial water change every week, and the water change schedule a tank follows decides how fast a bottle of conditioner runs out. The heater adds to the power bill by an amount that depends on the equipment and how cool the room runs.

Vet Costs

A fish vet is the spend worth making when a school keeps losing fish and the cause is not clear. Day to day, a rummy-nose school stays healthy on stable water and, when needed, over-the-counter treatment. Guesswork costs money of its own: fish are often given one over-the-counter product after another when the first fails, which usually does more harm than good. When fish fall ill, the signs that separate a water problem from a disease decide whether the next spend is a water change, a medication or a visit to a vet who sees fish. A fish health lab works from live, sick fish and a water sample taken from the tank before any water change, since the water a fish traveled in no longer matches the tank.

Lifespan

Rummy-nose tetras live about 5 years in a well-kept tank. That is a long run for a fish under 2 inches, and the 36-inch tank, heater, filter and test kit bought on day one serve the school for all of it.

Sources & Further Reading