Coffee Bean Tetra Care Guide - Aquarium Setup, Diet & Breeding

The Coffee Bean Tetra is a petite South American characin with a warm coppery to reddish-brown body and a subtle dark marking around the central flank. Its understated colours are especially attractive in a planted aquarium, where the fish’s translucent fins and gently reflective scales catch the light as it moves through the group.

This species has a graceful, streamlined shape and a lively but generally peaceful temperament. Coffee Bean Tetras spend much of their time in the middle levels of the aquarium, weaving among their companions and investigating their surroundings without the boisterous behaviour associated with some larger tetras.

In the wild, Hyphessobrycon takasei inhabits quiet forest waterways shaded by overhanging vegetation. Fallen leaves, branches and submerged roots create a complex underwater landscape, while naturally stained water gives many of these habitats a warm, tea-coloured appearance.

The Coffee Bean Tetra remains less commonly seen than familiar species such as the Neon or Black Neon Tetra, which gives it particular appeal to aquarists interested in unusual nano-sized characins. Its best qualities emerge when it is kept as a proper shoal, allowing its natural social behaviour and coordinated movements to be observed.

The Coffee Bean Tetra, Hyphessobrycon takasei, comes from northern Brazil in South America. It is associated with small, slow-moving forest streams and tributaries in the lower Amazonian region, particularly waters influenced by leaf litter and tannins.

A group of Coffee Bean Tetras should have at least a 60-litre aquarium, with a footprint of around 60 × 30 cm or larger. Use gentle filtration and provide open swimming space alongside dense planting, floating plants, driftwood and leaf litter. A dark sand or fine-gravel substrate helps the fish feel secure and brings out their warm colouration; subdued lighting and tannin-stained water can recreate the character of their forest-stream habitat.

Up to about 3.5 cm (1.4 inches). Females are usually slightly deeper-bodied and may be marginally larger than males.

Offer a varied diet of quality micro-pellets or finely crushed flakes supplemented with small frozen or live foods such as daphnia, baby brine shrimp, cyclops and bloodworm. Small portions fed once or twice daily suit their size, and occasional live foods can help enhance colour and condition adults for breeding.

Coffee Bean Tetras are peaceful community fish and can be kept with other similarly sized, calm species. Suitable companions include small rasboras, ember tetras, other gentle small tetras, pygmy Corydoras, Otocinclus and peaceful freshwater shrimp, provided the shrimp are not small enough to be viewed as prey. Avoid large or aggressive fish, fin-nippers and boisterous tankmates, which may intimidate them or outcompete them for food.

Coffee Bean Tetras are egg-scattering characins that may breed in a mature, dimly lit spawning aquarium containing fine-leaved plants or spawning mops. Condition a group with small live or frozen foods, then introduce the adults when females are full of eggs. They scatter adhesive eggs among the vegetation, after which the adults should be removed because they may eat the eggs. Hatching usually occurs within a day or two, and the tiny fry need infusoria-sized foods before progressing to freshly hatched brine shrimp.

Females generally have a fuller, rounder abdomen, particularly when carrying eggs, while males are slimmer and often appear more intensely coloured. Males may also have subtly more extended fins, although the differences are not always obvious in young fish.