Glowlight tetra (Hemigrammus erythrozonus) is one of the most common fish in the hobby. They are easily available in an aquarium shop, and almost everybody loves the colour of their body. You experience their best color when they are kept in blackwater setup. Glowlight Tetra fish are peaceful, shoaling fish that are acceptable for a community tank; however, I would only do species tank, i.e., only glowlight tetra in a tank. They are hardy and can be recommended for beginners, but their skittish behavior can be a problem for many people.
I have always enjoyed them for their colour. They bring such new aura in the tank and appreciate the beauty in the blackwater setup. Don’t get me wrong; there are various fish that look amazing in blackwater setup, but for me, glowlight tetra is the best.
Introduction of Glowlight Tetra
Glowlight tetras (Hemigrammus erythrozonus) are shoaling fish. Shoaling fish are those fish that can live on their own, but when there is a predator or threat nearby, the group up to save themselves. They are hardy fish and can tolerate various range of water parameters. These species of tetra do best in slightly acidic and soft water. They are very skittish in nature. When you approach them suddenly, they tend to swim away fast and hit the walls of the tank. This causes various injuries. If not taken care of, these injuries can lead to various illnesses.
Classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Actinopterygii
Order: Characiformes
Family: Characidae
Genus: Hemigrammus
Species: H. erythrozonus
Origin and Habitat
Glowlight tetras are South American fish. They are tropical fish that are found in the Essequibo River of Guyana, Mazaruni, and Potaro Rivers. The water conditions in these are naturally soft and acidic created by rotten leaves, an ideal condition for Glowlight Tetra to thrive.
The Glowlight Tetra fish was first introduced in the aquarium trade in 1933, where traders used to export from Asia and Germany. The fish was named Hemigrammus gracilis initially but was later changed to its current name Hemigrammus erythrozonus.
Description of Glowlight Tetra
Glowlight tetras are famous for their colour. They have a translucent silvery colour body where horizontal stripes run from head to tail. The stripes are red-orange colour, which in blackwater looks like a glowing filament of bulb lights. Hence the name, glowlight tetra.
They are often mistaken for Red Line or Glowlight Rasbora. Both of the fish have similar body markings; however, these two fish are completely different species.
Numbers of Fish
Glowlight tetras are shoaling fish. They can do well on their own, but it is recommended to have at least 6-10 of them. Their skittish behavior stresses them out easily. They are so shy that they run away when you try to feed them. They find protection and relief in a shoal. If you are planning to keep these fish, provide them lots of hiding places as the last thing you want in your tank is stressed-out fish.
Lifespan
They can live up to 5 years in captivity. To obtain this, you will need to provide them with nutritional food, maintain water parameters, and weekly water change.
Sex Differences
Females have larger and have a rounded body. Males are smaller than females and have a slender body.
Fish Difficulty
Except for their skittish behavior, they are like any other fish. They wouldn’t be my recommendation fish for beginners, but if you have a few months/years of experience with any fish then, definitely go for. This is because, for glowlight fish, you need to know about fish stress and the importance of hiding place. For an experienced keeper, we can differentiate stressed out fish and unusual behavior of the fish. But for a beginner (those who have no past experience or just beginning), they might have a hard time telling if the fish is stressed or not.
Stress fish get sick when they are not taken care of. The last thing beginner keepers want to experience is their fish getting sick. This will stress the keeper as well and might lose love for the hobby.
Glowlight Tetra Diet
Glowlight tetras are very easy to feed. They eat anything you provide them. They mostly eat floating food. As they are omnivores; for best health and colour, live and frozen food such as bloodworm, or live foods such as brine shrimp and Daphnia, along with dried flakes. They can be fed once or twice a day. Feed as much as they can eat within 1-2 minutes. Constant typical fish food can dull the colour.
Proper high-quality food can improve their immunity to fight against diseases.
Aquarium Setup
Now that you have detail information about the fish, let’s look into how to set up the aquarium for Glowlight Tetra step by step. Here we will be discussing the tank size, their diet, maintaining temperature, and other factors that you will need to look into in detail when setting up a tank.
Tank Size
Glowlight Tetras are shoaling fish. They need a large area to swim around. Although they do swim separately when they are stressed, they group up and swim, and for that reason getting a long tank would be ideal. Length of at least 60cm would be great for a small number (6). If you get any more than this, get a bigger tank. They do amazing when they are in school. You will keep on appreciating their beauty.
I wouldn’t recommend them for nano tanks.
Water Type
Blackwater would be ideal for them. In nature, they live in tannin water, so you cannot go wrong with blackwater. Clearwater is also fine, but bright light isn’t their thing.
Also, in blackwater, you can experience their color; you will understand why they are called glowlight tetra. I would highly recommend them for the blackwater setup.
Filtration
Get a filter that isn’t too strong or too weak. Get a filter based on your tank size, so forceful flow won’t stress them out. If you get a slower flow rate, the filter will take a lot of time to cycle the water.
Decoration
Glowlight tetras aren’t demanding fish. Any decorations will work for them. You just have to keep in mind that you need to provide lots of hiding places. This fish gets stressed easily, and they will find places to hide. For hiding places, you can use plants, driftwoods, or put decorations that can hide fish for the keeper as well as other fish. It can be pot, rocks, or just simply toys with spaces.
For plants, you can use a java fern, anubias, and an amazon sword. Use floating plants as well, as this will give them a sense of protection from above the water.
Plastic plants would also work, but make sure they don’t have pointy edges. When they swim around the edges, they might cut themselves.
I recommend getting real plants as they give a more natural look to the aquarium, and it causes no hard to the fish. Plants also help in the nitrogen cycle, and they aren’t hard, so even if glowlight tetras were to run into them, they wouldn’t cause such serious harm.
Substrate
You want to get a substrate that will make the fish even more beautiful. Any substrates will work as long as it is dark-colored. Sand or pebble with the dark background will be the best for them.
Lighting
Glowlight tetras don’t like bright lights. This is also the reason why you don’t want to keep them in clear water. They thrive in dim lights where there are floating plants above them. I have heard from various people that you want lights that extend to only half of the tank, i.e. from the left side of the tank to center or right side of the tank to center. Yeah! That is how much they prefer dark.
Don’t run light all night or all day. This will cause you various problems with algae. Although algae do not harm fish, it will make your tank messy. Give 6-8 hours of light a day and turn off during night time. To be honest, lights in the aquarium are only needed when there are plants, for display or when your fish room is completely dark. Fish also need to get a sense of days and nights to regulate the biological clock (for this reason, we turn the lights off during night time). If your tank doesn’t have plants and your tank can get light from other sources during the day, then you don’t need to get a light.
Water Condition in the Tank
Glowlight tetras like any other tetras, they love slightly acidic water, warmer temperature and soft to medium hardness water. I keep them in tannin water as they love it, and their body lights up when proper lights are provided.
They tolerate a wide range of temperatures, but they prefer warmer temperatures. They can survive from 22°C – 28°C. I tend to keep them around 24°C.
Water pH and Hardness
They love soft acidic water. They can survive in the range of pH 5.5-7. I recommend them keeping at 6.5. They have already adapted to neutral pH, and few lesser than seven would be great for them.
They can survive from soft water to medium hardness water. They can survive from 6 – 15 dGH. Keep them in between this range.
Tank Mates
Glowlight Tetra is a peaceful fish. They are readily compatible with any other similar size, peaceful fish. They are shoaling fish; however, they don’t school with other fish, but oftentimes, they do school with their own strains. Glowlight tetras are most compatible with their own kind, and if you plan on keeping them with others, it will be because you want a variety of fish in your tank. If it is for a show, get neon tetras or cardinal tetras as both of them have iridescent stripes on their body, which looks fantastic in blackwater. However, do read about both of the fish before you keep them with glowlight tetras.
Other fish you can keep them with are rasbora, other tetras, guppies, barbs, Cory catfish, peaceful loaches, etc. Keep bottom dwellers as well, like mystery snails, shrimps, or Cory catfish.
If you already have other fish living with glowlight tetras, check other fish’s compatibility with bottom dwellers so that they don’t hunt.
It is better to keep glowlight tetras with slow-moving fish. Fast/active fish can stress them out. Danios and silvertip tetras will not be suitable for compatibility.