Nokanda

Hi there,
I was wondering if anyone out there is a glowlight breeder that might answer some questions. We recently purchased eight glowlight tetras to help cycle our new 29 gallon tank. Since putting the fish in, they seem very happy and active (a nice turn from our neons). We have noticed our glowlights, which have been in the tank for all of three days, to be behaving kind of oddly. We have two fish that are larger than the rest (assumed female) that appear to be "leaders" in that wherever they go, at least three smaller fish follow. The odd thing is that the smaller ones seem to be rubbing against the larger one. They often swim in an inter-tangled pattern, rubbing against one another. Sometimes the smaller ones will appear to chase each other too. Are they just having fun exploring the immense space they now have? Or can we expect eggs? If we were to expect eggs, or fry, what would we do to protect/raise them?
We are very interested!!
Thanks to anyone who can help!!!!

Dino

Yes, that is breeding behavior.
Glowlights are egg scatterers.
To get fry, they need fine leaved plants or another similar material in which to scatter the eggs.
Getting eggs is not the hard part, however.
The newborn fry are very small and require very small food.
The best food for newborn tetra fry is green water.

Greenwater can be made by crumpling a lettus leaf into a ball, placing that in a bowl and adding aquarium water.
Place the bowl by a window where it would get direct light.
In 24-36 hours, you should have green water.
Pore the contents thru a paper towel to remove any leaf material and add the green water to the tank with the fry.

Hope this helps.

Nokanda

Amazing! We will invest in some fine leaved plants and keep an eye out! Should the plants be floating plants or should they be bottom plants? Hopefully we can be quick enough to find the eggs before they become fry and then scooby-snacks! (any other suggestions would be more than welcome!)
Thank you SO much for your advice!!

Dino

It does not matter if the plants are at the top or bottom, the fish will go to the plants.

Nokanda

Beautiful! Thank you!