Then just a couple of days later, I received an excited phone call from my friendly neighborhood pet shop. They have just received their first shipment of hot pink tetra and electric orange tetra. Of course, I dropped everything and went right over. I left with three electric orange and six hot pink tetras.
This line of tetra comes from the white tetra, a very peaceful and schooling fish. The parents are injected with the gene of a coral in order to make the hot pink and orange colors. When they give birth, their offspring have the same colors as the parents, and the colors continue throughout subsequent generations.
Scientists originally developed them, along with the electric green tetra containing a jellyfish gene, to detect toxic levels of poisons in the water supply.
Above, they join other tetra in one of my angelfish community tanks. Below, some of them are shown in a different community tank I have.
I have one lone rainbow fish who I suspect thinks she's a tetra, as she enjoys schooling with them. The rainbow fish is the one to the right of the picture above. She has a narrow snout and a humpback, common with older rainbowfish. She is a boesemani rainbow.
