Steve420

Hi everyone,

I'm hopefully picking up some Dwarf Neon Rainbows today from my LFS. I'm planning on getting a small school of 5 or 6 to put into my 55g (which currently only holds 6 neon tetras). Just curious if anyone has any tips or advice on acclimating them, feeding, care, etc. I've read that they are pretty simple to care for and are reasonably hardy.

Should I just float them or use a drip method at acclimate?

Can I feed them the same flake food that I've been feeding my tetras or will they need something specific?

Any information is greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Steve

Pandora

Mine were quite easy to care for, other than the first batch I got with intestinal worms that all died before I figured out the trouble, they never gave me any problems. They were fairly easy to breed too.
If you got them locally chances are your water's not too different from what they're used to. I never did anything extra in acclimating the adults, though the fry I was careful with water changes (they're supposed to be rather delicate in terms of water parameter fluctuations, haven't heard that the adults are though). Mine were in moderately hard water, pH around 7.6-7.8, moved around between tanks a few times over the years, and always did fine with their tankmates... they seem to be non-threatening enough for the (relatively peaceful) cichlids I had them with, got along great with the diamond tetras, paradise fish, etc.
Feeding they just ate flakes, and also whatever of the sinking pellets I gave the cichlids they could get, and the floating ones for the paradise fish, nothing fancy though. I gave the odd feeding of frozen mysis shrimp, and they got a bit, but that sunk pretty fast as well so they didn't get a lot.
I had them at least 3-4 years, can't remember exactly, until a bit over a year ago when I was away for a month and the heater cooked the tank, and no one noticed till I got back to find about 3 very heat tolerant fish remaining in the tank.
Very pretty fish! I really enjoyed them, and still miss them. It's really neat to watch the courting males 'flash' the top of their head/back white. I've heard it's best to be a bit female heavy for the school... I had 2-3 males and 4-5 females (lower # was what I got, larger what I ended up with after keeping some of the fry I raised lol), and that seemed to work out well.

Steve420

Is there any easy way to distinguish males from females? I can't rely on my LFS to know...

Pandora

Yes, they're not too hard to tell, especially if they're mature. Males are deeper through the body, and tend to have a bit of a 'hump' going on... their backs rise quite steeply from their heads. Once they're fully mature they have quite a different body shape from the girls. They're also brighter blue, with red fins, while girls tend to be a bit paler blue, and their fins are more yellow to orange.
Here's a good pic: http://watershed3.tripod.com/rainneon.JPG
both are a bit washed out in it, but you can see the relative difference pretty easily!

And this is a mature male: http://www.livefish.com.au/images/rainbow_praecox.jpg

Steve420

so I ended up getting my Dwarf Neons tonight. I picked up 6 from my LFS and pretty sure that I ended up with 1 male and 5 female. Although they are small still, one has distinctive red on his tail fin while the others look very yellow. It doesn't really matter to me one way or another just along as they remain peaceful.

But so far so good...these are pretty cool little fish.

Pandora

Congrats! I hope you enjoy them