Neon Tetras

Photo By: Andy

These fish are one of the all time favourites within the hobby. There won't be many people who have kept fish for any legth of time that have never kept Neons. They seem to have everything going for them, they are peaceful, colourful, hardy, and easy to keep. They prefer softer acidic water but they aren't to fussy. They will eat almost everything you give them but a good diet of high quality flake food supplemented with small live food is best. They also have strong shoaling instincts and should be kept as a group instead of a pair. They also dislike strong lighting and if sujected to this they may trnd to shy away. Finally they are small fish and could easily fall prey to larger fish like Angels or Giant Danios.

Breeding these fish is entirely another matter. This is far from easy, there are a number of critical factors to be aware of if you are to have any success, firstly the eggs and fry are light sensitive, this means that light will kill them, they also require very soft acidic, and aged water. Finally the fry are tiny very sensitive and difficult to raise. There is absolutely no point in a novice breeder attempting to breed these fish, even if you have bred other fish and want to try small Characins Glowlight Tetras or Blackwidows (Blackskirt Tetras) are a much more suitable choice. Here for details

The sexes are easy to tell apart, the males are much slimmer and slightly smaller than the large well rounded females. The sexes should be seperated fed lots of high protein food such as live food and freeze dried food to bring them into spawning condition. Set up a small 12 x 8 x 8 tank with some Cabomba or artificial spawning mops and let it stand for a few days. If possible site the tank where it will catch the very early rising sun in the morning. The water in the tank should be acidic pH 5.5 to 6 and very soft 1 or 2 dh cover the tank sides and prepare a cover for the top, front and the back too. The temp does not need to be kept high to induce spawning 75f is adequate. There is no need to use a filter at this point, but a mature sponge filter should be on stand by in another tank.

Introduce the fish (an adult pair) into the tank in the evening time. Once the fish settle the male will start displaying and chasing the female particularly around the plants or spawning mop. By the next day or sooner the eggs will have been laid and the pair will instantly lose interest in each other after spawning. Remove the adults and put the covers in place.

Leave the tank completely alone, the eggs will hatch after about 30 hrs and the fry will be free swimming after a further four days. You should remove the front cover now and begin feeding the fry. Ideally infusoria should be used, but only if you really know how to culture it, this is not the time to try it for the first time. More fry will have died through introducing dirty, ammonia packed water in to the aquarium in the mistaken belief that it was infusoria, than almost any other reason. If you are in any doubt use a liquid fry food. The filter should also go in the tank now too.

At one week old the fry should be ready to start eating newly hatched brine shrimp.and another week later this can be supplemented with finely powdered flake food. You should also start to make very small water changes to the tank just a cup ful per day to begin with and gradually moving up to 25% never more than this, and you must use the same soft acidic water that they have been reared in.

At about 8 to 9 weeks they should be moved to a larger tank, try to catch them in a bowl rather than lifting them from the water or if possible put the whole tank in the larger one and very gently pour them in. Once they have settled, start the water changes again but this time very slowly over a few days use ordinary water and let them adjust to slightly harder water. Gradually introduce them to food that is more coarse until at about 12 weeks they should be acustomed to ordinary water that 99% of community fish are kept in and eating flake food as it comes from the packet.

They are now ready to sell. There should be about 4 doz, but there is a way to get more. Start the fish off in the same way and let them spawn. Then start again, re seperate them and recondition them, Then spawn them again. This second spawn will have a much higher hatch rate because the eggs and sperm will be much fresher, because it hasn't been stored in the fishes bodies for as long. The fry to could be more vigorous as a result of this too.

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