How can I breed neon tetras?

i heard its kinda hard but im willing to accept that challenge as I love neons i think I have the perfect ratio 3 females 2 males at least I think/hope
i have seen conflicting information on other sites but I would like someone to elaborate on the topic of breeding neons or have done it before I'm probably gonna make a neon breeding journal

 

I have bred neons, but I must admit it just sort of happening and I wasn't trying. I had a 10 gallon tank. I have soft water with low GH.

I had little cave decorations that the neons liked going in and the fry would appear in there. It sort of gave the eggs a place to stay protected and not get eaten. But many say that the fry are sensitive to light, so the cave did provide some darkness that may have been key.

I was feeding mainly live fruitflies and some shrimp powder.

Nothing cuter than baby neons!!

 

I have bred neons, but I must admit it just sort of happening and I wasn't trying. I had a 10 gallon tank. I have soft water with low GH.

I had little cave decorations that the neons liked going in and the fry would appear in there. It sort of gave the eggs a place to stay protected and not get eaten. But many say that the fry are sensitive to light, so the cave did provide some darkness that may have been key.

I was feeding mainly live fruitflies and some shrimp powder.

Nothing cuter than baby neons!!

that's amazing how many did you end up with?

 

i heard its kinda hard but im willing to accept that challenge as I love neons i think I have the perfect ratio 3 females 2 males at least I think/hope
i have seen conflicting information on other sites but I would like someone to elaborate on the topic of breeding neons or have done it before I'm probably gonna make a neon breeding journal

I've bred them, you spawn them in pairs in a small tank/tub.
Step 1, feed lots of food like live brine shrimp and bloodworms for a few days in a row
Step 2 fill a bucket with soft water and put some leaf litter in there to release tannins and lower the pH.
Step 3 once neons are fattened up pick the biggest female and best male and at night time move them to a small tank with a few cm of their tank water, gradually fill up the tank with the soft, stained water to sinulate rainfall. Make it a little bit cooler than the tank they came from, around 74°F. Add a lot of moss and floating plants. No filter needed. Cover the tank with a towel and go to sleep, the next morning uncover the tank and watch them spawn, let them do this for a few hours and then put them back in their tank. Cover the tank with a towel again for about 3 days.
The eggs will hatch and should be free swimming after 3-4 days, at this point they will be feeding off the infusoria in the tank from the plants and leaf litter but you can also feed some microworms. I used bananaworms as thwy are half the size of microworms. After about a week since spawn get live baby brine shrimp going and once they are eating that itd plain sailing. Small daily water changes will keep them growing.

 

Wow that’s awesome yes for the entire month of January plus most of March I’m gonna fatten them up they are a year and a half old and I plan on buying more plants I also plan on trying to spawn my red eye tetras aswell I have 2 males one female same age as the neons

 

that's amazing how many did you end up with?

We saw a cloud of maybe a dozen fry. About 5-6 survived and are still in the tank as adults now. Born and raised!

Soft water. Lots of good live food. Caves with darkness and places for the babies to hide and not get eaten. Boom! Baby neons!

 

We saw a cloud of maybe a dozen fry. About 5-6 survived and are still in the tank as adults now. Born and raised!

Soft water. Lots of good live food. Caves with darkness and places for the babies to hide and not get eaten. Boom! Baby neons!

that's so cool I'm gonna stat making rock cave systems out of rock and silicone tomorrow and hopefully I can order live plants soon
for ph and tannins can I use cottonwood leaves because that's all I have in my yard

 

keep it up guys im adding leaf litter today to lower the ph
and dont worry if they fail to spawn i will draw a fish from all of you

Whats the target pH, kH, gH? I've never had a mind to try neons

 

Whats the target pH, kH, gH? I've never had a mind to try neons

Must be right up your alley, meaning very low. Though I heard they can go higher than cardinals.

 

Whats the target pH, kH, gH? I've never had a mind to try neons

i am not sure about kh or gh but I know they like to spawn in 6.5 to 6.2 ph and lots of leaf litter and tannins and temp around 74

 

What is your plan to trigger spawning? Just tap water or RO

 

i am not sure about kh or gh but I know they like to spawn in 6.5 to 6.2 ph and lots of leaf litter and tannins and temp around 74

Not sure about the target you want to achieve or the target you need to reach?
What are the current readings?

Prepared for the light sensitivity of the eggs and young fry?

 

Not sure about the target you want to achieve or the target you need to reach?
What are the current readings?

Prepared for the light sensitivity of the eggs and young fry?

my ph is naturally 7.2 i added leaves and within 3 hours its 6.8
tank is cycled i put leaf litter in there
the target I want to achieve is around a hundred or so fry to sell for like a 75c each just for fun and the expierience

 

Hopefully you have something to cover the tank glass. Water change + blackout will get them to spawn. But the eggs and fry need soft water + infusoria to survive. Just make sure to have something covering the aquarium, and do not turn on aquarium light (complete darkness will help a lot!)

 

my ph is naturally 7.2 i added leaves and within 3 hours its 6.8
tank is cycled i put leaf litter in there
the target I want to achieve is around a hundred or so fry to sell for like a 75c each just for fun and the expierience

Either your water is softer than 7.2 might suggest or it just settled.
So you have no idea what hardness your water has?

With target I meant KH and GH, not how many fry.

 

Either your water is softer than 7.2 might suggest or it just settled.
So you have no idea what hardness your water has?

With target I meant KH and GH, not how many fry.

i don't have a test kit that tests that but my water normally has no tannins whatsoever and my cichlid tank stays between 7.4 to 7.2 ph but since I added leaves to my tetra tank its dropped to 6.8 ph

Hopefully you have something to cover the tank glass. Water change + blackout will get them to spawn. But the eggs and fry need soft water + infusoria to survive. Just make sure to have something covering the aquarium, and do not turn on aquarium light (complete darkness will help a lot!)

yup I lowered ph today and turned lights off my room is naturally dark plus I'm gonna put a dark towel over them and I use saran wrap for tank covers its cheap and easy lol and I don't have infusoria but I have micro fry food made for small fry and that should work its a super fine powder

 

What is your plan to trigger spawning? Just tap water or RO

tap but I was recently told to use RO water but I don't know where to get it

 

i don't have a test kit that tests that but my water normally has no tannins whatsoever and my cichlid tank stays between 7.4 to 7.2 ph but since I added leaves to my tetra tank its dropped to 6.8 ph

yup I lowered ph today and turned lights off my room is naturally dark plus I'm gonna put a dark towel over them and I use saran wrap for tank covers its cheap and easy lol and I don't have infusoria but I have micro fry food made for small fry and that should work its a super fine powder

Super fine powder fry food will not work

 

The brand I got people used for neon tetra fry. But I guess I can order a culture from eBay
Well Ph bounced back up to 7.6 so my new idea is to collect rainwater

 

The brand I got people used for neon tetra fry. But I guess I can order a culture from eBay
Well Ph bounced back up to 7.6 so my new idea is to collect rainwater

Forget buying "fry food". Get your leaves in there. Start letting the goodies grow on them. Start collecting the rain water. By the time you get 100% rainwater in there, it should be close. Pull the adults after they spawn, and leave the tank alone. Start hatching baby brine shrimp as soon as the fry start coming out of the leaf litter (2-4 weeks). The bugs in the leaf litter will provide more than enough fry food to get them to BBS size.

 

I had to recycle the tank because my sister asked to feed the fish and I didn’t realize she put a whole thing of food in there so I moved everybody to a holding tank and have to recycle

 

I had to recycle the tank because my sister asked to feed the fish and I didn’t realize she put a whole thing of food in there so I moved everybody to a holding tank and have to recycle

Rainwater, leaves, tannins, low pH....what cycle? You're looking at 4-8 months (minimum) of trying to get a tank that will breed neons to cycle. Low pH bacteria take forever to select for extreme conditions.

 

Rainwater, leaves, tannins, low pH....what cycle? You're looking at 4-8 months (minimum) of trying to get a tank that will breed neons to cycle. Low pH bacteria take forever to select for extreme conditions.

i had the tank cycled for 4 months using old media aswell i am just gonna do more research

 

i had the tank cycled for 4 months using old media aswell i am just gonna do more research

The point is, that in low pH different bacteria, archaeans and yeasts take over the cycle. They take ages to grow.

 

I did not have low pH when my neons bred. The pH was around 7.8.

I do have GH=2 in the neon tank. The low GH is what I consider important for the neons to be happy in general.

 

I did not have low pH when my neons bred. The pH was around 7.8.

I do have GH=2 in the neon tank. The low GH is what I consider important for the neons to be happy in general.

Interesting. Do you know what the kH was?
Interesting read on breeding neons
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs...8)060<0032:CSOTNT>2.0.CO;2?journalCode=uzpf20

 

Interesting. Do you know what the kH was?

KH=8 degrees
I buffer my whole house water with soda ash and was using that for the neons.

As I understand, it is the portion of the dissolved solids that affect the kidneys that are important. That means the GH needs to be low for soft water fish, but the KH really doesn't matter to the fish.

I realize the folks in the paper noted that they used low KH water, but that doesn't mean that it has to be low. Just what they used. But if the low KH helped the plants, then that is why you need it!

 

KH=8 degrees
I buffer my whole house water with soda ash and was using that for the neons.

As I understand, it is the portion of the dissolved solids that affect the kidneys that are important. That means the GH needs to be low for soft water fish, but the KH really doesn't matter to the fish.

I realize the folks in the paper noted that they used low KH water, but that doesn't mean that it has to be low. Just what they used. But if the low KH helped the plants, then that is why you need it!

Wild! I would not of thought breeding neons was possible at 8dKH/2dGH (170ppm TDS?).

 

Just because it registers on a TDS meter doesn't mean it matters to the fish!