Ceros Tetra

About

Found in the Amazon River basin of South America, Moenkhausia ceros is a small, peaceful characin that turns up in the hobby more by accident than design. Most specimens arrive as unintentional hitchhikers mixed in with shipments of more commonly traded tetras. That relative scarcity is a bit of a shame, because it behaves exactly as you'd want a small community tetra to behave. It's calm, inoffensive, and gets along well with similarly sized, gentle tankmates. A South American biotope setup suits it perfectly, alongside pencilfish, Hemigrammus or Hyphessobrycon tetras, Corydoras, dwarf cichlids like Apistogramma, and small loricariids. It also works in a general community with smaller rasboras, barbs, and anabantoids, as long as nobody in the tank is large enough to view it as a snack or aggressive enough to hassle it. Like most schooling tetras, it really needs to be kept in a group. Six at an absolute minimum, but ten or more will show off its natural behavior far better. Breeding has not been formally documented for this species, though its close relatives in the genus breed without too much difficulty under standard small-characin conditions. The genus Moenkhausia itself is currently in taxonomic flux, so don't be surprised if the name shifts at some point down the road.