Smallest Silver Dollar

[steeler58]

What is the smallest Silver Dollar?. Scientific name please.

I would like to get a school but most of them get big.

[Lady Hobbs]

I don't know of any small ones. Most all get about 5" but the Red Hooks and they get larger.

[cuckoochews]

Not sure who's the smallest, but one thing for sure, they WILL eat ALL your plants. I've had larger species of sd that were always keep w/ plastics, and they would periodically rip the fake plants apart just to mess w/ me!

[tetrageek]

Even anubias?

[Lady Hobbs]

Onion plants, java moss, java fern they will not. Not sure about anibus but I would think they would. They may leave cryts alone but not sure on that either. I always fed mine a huge lettuce leaf each day. Veggies are their main diet and they need it.

[smaug]

I've not kept mine with plants but understand they do nip at them. Mine have never gotten and veggys for food but get fed cichlid food with lots of spirulina in it. I can only say that mine certainly do not need veggys as they are larve,active and quite healthy. As for sizes there are only 2 types I know of ,the red hooks get very larg and the ones like I have get about 4 to 5 inches.

[SueD]

I added a crinum natans (similar to onion plant) and a larger anubias which I tied to driftwood just about 3 weeks ago to a tank with silver dollars and so far so good. Not even a nibble yet. But I'll still be watching daily in case they start in on them and if so, I'll pull them out and plant elsewhere.

[Lady Hobbs]

That's good to hear. Plants that are nasty tasting they leave alone so guess anubias are one of those. I put mine in a tank with swords and the swords were in taters by morning. They do not "need" lettuce leaves but they like it just like fish do not need blood worms. They enjoy the grazing throughout the day and riping away at greens like they do in the wild.

I wish they offered some of the different types of Dollars in stores here. They are many types. Some have spotted bodies, some have stripes, some are shaped differently.

steeler.....It isn't hard to find the scientific names for them. Do a Google search and check out Wiki. They're all listed there.

[steeler58]

Thanks for the replys. The smallest I could was Metynnis Lippincottianus. Most Info says they reach 43/4, still a little big for my tasts.

I might start looking for this fish, it's supposed to be an old favorite but I have never seen them in LFS, it's simply called the Silver Tetra. They get over 3 inchs and are notorius plant eaters also.

[Zander]

Probably an obvious suggestion here. Not a type of silver dollar, but similar looking in terms of body shape is the Black Skirt Tetra (or the albino Gold Skirt). Both are very common and inexpensive, and won't eat plants. Not sure if eating plants was a good thing to you or not.

Males will stay closer to 2 inches, while females can get up to 3.