• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Home
  • Bettas 101
    • Acclimation
    • All About Water
      • Nitrogen Cycle
      • Ph & Ammonia
      • Water Changes
    • Betta Fish Anatomy
    • Betta Vases
    • Choosing a Tank
    • Feeding Bettas
      • Food Myths
      • Frozen & Live Betta Food
    • Tankmates for Bettas
      • African Dwarf Frogs & Bettas
      • Apple Snails & Bettas
      • Neon Tetras & Bettas
      • Otocinclus Catfish & Bettas
      • Quarantine New Fish
    • Plakat Betta
    • Rosetail Betta
    • Veil-tail Betta
  • Sick Betta
    • Diseases and Treatment
    • Aging Bettas
    • Bloating and Constipation
    • Cotton Wool Disease
    • Dropsy
    • Fin Rot and Fin Loss
    • First Steps
    • Gill Hyperplasia
    • Ich
    • Popeye
    • Septicemia (Infection)
    • Swim Bladder Disorder
    • Sick Betta Symptom Checker
    • Velvet Disease
    • Wounded Betta
    • Fish Tank Granuloma
  • Behavior
    • Bubble Nests
    • Skittish Bettas
    • Tail Biting
  • Breeding Bettas
  • Equipment
  • Q & A
  • Other fish
  • Contact

Fish Care

Everything You Need to Know About Betta Fish

You are here: Home / Breeding Bettas / Other fish / Diamonds are Forever (Moenkhausia pittieri)

Diamonds are Forever (Moenkhausia pittieri)

Moenkhausia pittieri

Last year I purchased 10 Diamond Tetras at a monthly DSAS auction. Joe Kaznica who had bred them had offered them at auction. Joe has a great knack breeding tetras and I know all his fish are well maintained. The sparkling appearance of these fish is what caught my eye and so I bid on them, but was not really prepared to house them when I got home. I had a 20-gallon long tank that had only a few young Corydoras panda in it, so I dumped the tetras in with them. I usually quarantine my newly acquired fish, but I have never had a problem with Joe’s fish so I felt secure in adding them to this tank.

Moenkhausia pittieri, the Diamond Tetra, hails from Lake Valencia in Venezuela. The male is about 2” in length and the female slightly smaller. The male’s dorsal fin is high and pointed whereas the female’s is smaller and blunt. Both sexes have the iridescent scales that give the fish its name, but the over all appearance of the male seems flashier and the female paler. The dorsal and anal fins have a very light lilac coloration. These guys really flash their stuff as they dart around the tank chasing each other.

The water the Diamond Tetras were in was soft, a pH of 6.8, and the temperature was 75 F. (24 C.). The tank was bare bottomed with a sponge filter. I had some clumps of Java moss in the corners and some duckweed floating on the surface. I use the duckweed mainly to keep the light intensity in the tank low. These must have been good parameters for the tetras because they acclimated to it with no discernable problems. Within a couple of hours they were cavorting all over the tank. They were already picking at the Hikari sinking wafers that I use to feed my catfish.

About a two weeks later I noticed some of the females were a little plumper and there was a pinkish glow to their bellies. I figured they may be gravid since the males were a bit more aggressive in chasing them. I moved a male and the most gravid female to a 5-gallon tank with water from the original tank and a sponge filter. I placed a green nylon spawning mop in the tank along with a clump of Java moss and raised the temperature to 80F (27C.). I had read that Diamonds prefer that temperature for spawning. Each morning I checked the mop and Java moss for eggs. On the fifth day I found some eggs in the moss. I remove the parents to a 55-gallon community tank.

The eggs were extremely small (1mm) and had a pale amber-yellow coloration. I lowered the water level to about 2” depth to make it easier for the future fry to find food. They hatched out sometime on the second day. Most of the fry stayed in the Java moss but a few were on the bottom of the tank. These babies were very small, clear in color, and thin. In fact if it wasn’t for their yolk sac and their dark eyes I doubt I would have seen them. Since they still had a yolk sac I did not add any food to the tank. Besides I felt there was plenty of micro-organisms in that well-aged water and on the moss to sustain the fry initially.

When the fry were free swimming, 4-5 days, I began adding some APR but soon the fry were accepting both newly hatched brine shrimp and finely ground flakes. The fry grew fairly rapidly on this diet and I stopped the brine shrimp after two weeks. The young fry were silvery in appearance but showed no signs of the iridescence of the adults. They also did not have the depth of body and intricate finnage of the adults. Those traits developed as they matured.


Filed Under: Other fish, Stories Tagged With: Moenkhausia pittieri

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Search


Recent Posts

  • Cool Betta Fish Tank Ideas
  • How Long Do Betta Fish Live For? – 5 Helpful Tips For a Long and Happy Life
  • 3 Gallon Fish Tank for Betta
  • 10 Gallon Aquarium Stands and Cabinets
  • How Much Do Betta Fish Cost to Buy and Care For?

NippyFish Facebook Page

Visit the NippyFish Facebook Page

Featured Posts

Complete Guide to Betta Fish Diseases and Treatment

This complete guide on Betta fish illnesses and diseases from A-Z will help you pinpoint what is wrong with your Betta and how to treat it.

The 4 Most Common Signs of Illness in Betta Fish

This article focuses on the 4 most common signs of illness in Betta fish.

Betta Fish Tank Setup – A Detailed Guide For Beginners

This article will be providing a detailed beginners guide on how to setup a tank for your Betta fish.

Top 12 Betta Fish Toys

This article has a list of some of our favorite Betta fish toys. Don’t have a bored Betta.

Setup an Aquatic Plant Environment For Your Betta

Having a healthy plant in your tank will help to improve the water quality by filtering out waste and removing some of the CO2 that’s produced by your fish.

Copyright © 2025 All Rights Reserved | NippyFish | Privacy Policy

Nippyfish.net is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.