It’s with great sorrow I write this blog today!
I found out, only yesterday, on Saturday, May 21st, that one of my dear and close cousin has just past away. His heart had just stopped. He died in his own home in Stockholm.
So it is with great sorrow I’m writing this blog today. And to honor my cousin Andrè Sjöberg, I’m going to dedicate this blog to him and write about the “fish of sorrow”, the Black Widow Tetra.
The black tetra, Gymnocorymbus ternetzi, also known as the black skirt tetra, petticoat tetra, high-fin black skirt tetra, black widow tetra and blackamoor.
Its a cute fish and I love it! I have a great school of this species in one of my aquariums.
It’s a freshwater species as most of you know and it’s habitat is in Paraguay River basin of south-central Brazil mainly the Pantanal region in Paraguay and northeast Argentina.
Growing up to total length of 7.5 cm or 3.0 inch in length, the black tetra has a roughly tetragonal body shape and is greyish in colour, fading from near black at the tail to light at the nose. It almost looks like a small black Piraña. Two prominent, black, vertical bars appear just posterior to the gills. It is easily distinguished from all of its congeners by the presence of a dense field of dark chromatophores spread homogeneously over the posterior one half of the body unlike the lack of such pigmentation in all congeners. The black widow tetra is a schooling fish that feeds on small crustaceans, insects, and worms.
Sense it is a schooling fish and fairly large for a tetra, they need space to swim around in. So by that being said, a minimum of 128 liters or 35 gallons, 80 cm or 32 inches long aquarium is needed for it to thrive. The species reaches sexual maturity at about two years of age. Like most characins, this species spawns by intermittently releasing and fertilizing eggs among plants. It frequently eats its own eggs, so keepers remove the fish after spawning.
The black tetra was also used to make genetically modified fish sold as “Glofish”. Bet you didn’t know that!
Not to be mistaken for other tetras with similar names:
The Black Phamtom Tetra, Hyphessobrycon megalopterus, is a separate species. The Black Neon Tetra, Hyphessobrycon herbertaxelrodi, is sometimes also called the Black Tetra.
Thank you for understanding why I decided to write about The Black Widow Tetra and why I choose to present this species under that particular common name today!
Cheers!
September 26th 1978 – May 9th 2022
❤️Beloved and Missed Son, Brother & Cousin❤️
In Memory of Andrè Sjöberg
The Aquatic Studio! 
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