How to breed Neon Tetras?

[TheSwissAquarist]

Any good advice to give? 
Have a nice day!

[AnimalNerd98]

Keeping Fish Simple did a video on breeding them. He set it up with a pretty low pH. 

I think the other major thing is making sure that you have infusoria cultures set up for the teeny tiny fry. 

[TheSwissAquarist]

On 10/8/2022 at 10:24 AM, AnimalNerd98 said:

Keeping Fish Simple did a video on breeding them. He set it up with a pretty low pH. 

I think the other major thing is making sure that you have infusoria cultures set up for the teeny tiny fry. 

Do you think that Daphnia would work?

[gardenman]

Mark's Aquatics on YouTube has a multi-part series on breeding Neons.  (And pretty much anything else one can breed, including some marine fish.) Neon fry are very, very small and maybe even too small for daphnia initially.

 

[tolstoy21]

I would start out feeding them either infusoria or paramecium for the first week or so.

Peat works well for lowering Ph, but you have to start with water that has negligible mineral hardness or Kh, like rain or RO water.

I've never bred neons, but the tetras I have bred have similar requirements. I feed paramecium exclusively during the first week, then switch to vinegar eels and paramecium for the next couple weeks. I keep up the paramecium because some fish are still smaller than others and hiding in the moss, plants, etc.

I don't switch to BBS or anything larger until I can see the fry starting to emerge from the moss in larger numbers. Then I do a couple small sample pipettes of BBS and see if they are taking it or not before I start switching them over.

The switch is gradual and I keep up the vinegar eels, and slowly ween off the paramecium. Then I slowly ween off the vinegar eels until it's just BBS. Then I do the same with crushed flake, etc. Ween off one food while graduating to the next. I'd say the whole process takes about a month or so.

Be prepared to fail a couple times before you have it all dialed in.

Edited October 9, 2022 by tolstoy21