Neon Tetra

Neon Tetra
The text below is an exact from the book Tetras. 

In the book, the article is accompanied by many colour pictures.

The Neon Tetra, Paracheirodon innesi, is one of the most popular aquarium fish. Its maximum length is a little over 3cm. The Neon Tetra is closely related to the Cardinal Tetra Paracheirodon axelrodi and the Green Neon Tetra Paracheirodon simulans.

It is less closely related to the hundreds of other tetra species.  The Neon (innesi) was named after William T. Innis.

Companions

Neon Tetras are a good fish for a community aquarium of small fish. Some of the other fish they can be kept with are small Rasboras and small tetras. Peppered and Bronze Catfish are suitable scavengers for a tank of Neons.

I do not recommend putting Neons with large fish like Black Sharks, Gold Gouramis and Tin Foil Barbs. In the wild, Neon Tetra sized fish are a natural food for adult Angel Fish.

Origin and Temperature

It comes from the upper reaches of the Amazon River, in the large section known locally as the Solimões River. It has also been reported from tributaries of the Orinoco River.  They are mainly reported from the small creeks leading to the big rivers, rather than the big rivers themselves.  Some of these streams are black water ones while others have clear water.  The Neon Tetra can live and breed in either.

This is a tropical area and the Neon Tetra is a tropical fish.  Neons should have heated water, unless they can be kept in a room that never gets cold.  I suggest an aquarium heater with the thermostat to about 23 - 24° C (75 - 77° F).  Neons do not like very warm water, and temperatures over 30° C should definitely be avoided.  Even a continuous temperature of 28° C is too warm to expect your Neons to remain healthy, and I’ve known people to have had outbreaks of disease in their Neons, apparently caused by a temperature of 28° C.

Water Conditions

The Neon comes from water that is almost incredibly soft and moderately acidic, having a pH ranging from 5.0 - 7.0. They can be kept successfully in water with Ph ranging from 5.0 to 7.4. They can live in reasonably hard water, but if you want to breed them, considerable care will be necessary to recreate the water conditions of the wild neon. For a community aquarium, I suggest a neutral Ph.

A community aquarium should have plants or other cover. This both looks good to humans, and provides some security to the fish. With plants present, the fish actually show themselves more.

The Neon is a schooling fish; I recommend a school of six or more. A school of Neons in an aquarium is a very beautiful sight. The Neon loses its colours in the dark, but regains them quickly when it gets light again.

Feeding

Neon Tetras eat all common aquarium foods including flakes. Dry fry food is also good for them. It is not only a suitable size, but is also is higher in protein and other nutrients than most fish food. Live food is good for Neons, as it is for other fish. Frozen blood worms are readily available, and Neons love them.

Neons like the Betta food sold by Aqua One. This food is smaller than is ideal for a fighting fish, but is an excellent size for Neons.  This food is not well balanced for either Neons or fighting fish, so it should only be a small part of their diet.

Sexing

Male Neons have a straighter blue line than females.  The females have plumper and rounder bellies than the males.  When in breeding condition, their belly increases in size so they are more obviously different from the slimmer males.

Breeding

When I was a teenager, Neons were considered to be almost impossible to breed, and odd stories abounded about how the meticulous Germans succeeded.

Later the Singaporeans were also very successful in their Neon breeding.  The thing they have in common is very pure water, similar to the water Neons are native to.  Once you get the water right, Neons may breed readily.

Many people recommend using rainwater.  In some areas this is a suitable starting point, but in many places, the rainwater is too polluted both from what it picks up from the atmosphere as it falls, and from whatever surface it is collected from. Nevertheless, there seems little doubt that many people have their Neons spawning in a community tank without being aware of it.

If you have good rainwater, I suggest using it; otherwise, you may have to start with highly purified water such as reverse osmosis water, or distilled water. Neons in the wild spawn in extremely soft water. In some areas, the water will be stained dark with tannins from leaves etc.

Conventional Breeding

All things except the fish that go into the breeding tank should be sterilized.  The water should have a pH of about 6.0 and be as soft as you can get it, ideally with a hardness of less than one degree, or in parts per million, of less than 2 parts per million of total hardness.

The bottom of the tank should have fine spawning grass over a layer of small pebbles.  (Some people use real plants, but this is another thing that can’t be sterilized.)

The fish should be well conditioned with good quality meaty foods before being put into the aquarium.  The best conditioning food is probably mosquito larvae.

One Australian commercial Neon breeder used Moina as the main food.  The parents will usually spawn in the early morning and seem to be stimulated to spawn by the early morning light. Some breeders stimulate them to spawn by changing half the water in the breeding tank, dramatically lowering the level of nitrate in the water, while increasing the temperature slightly.

Each female Neon can produce about 130 eggs at a spawning, and will sometimes spawn as frequently as once a week. 

Neon eggs are almost transparent and slightly sticky when first laid.  They hatch in 22-30 hours are the fry are free swimming in 2-3 days.

Raising the Babies

Neon fry are tiny. They need microscopic food like infusoria, rotifers or suspended particles of hard-boiled egg yolk for about 3 weeks. This can be supplemented with the finest grade of commercial fry food. After that they can eat things like vinegar eels, newly hatched Brine Shrimp, screened Moina and microworms.

Semi-natural Breeding

If you can set up a tank of at least 60 litres (13 UK gallons or 16 US gallons), and preferably bigger, with an acidic pH, (even as low as 5.5) and Oak leaf litter, practically no hardness, and ten Neons in, they may spawn as frequently as once a day (Usually early in the mornings).  Neons will eat both their eggs and their babies so you won’t get large numbers surviving, but the ones that do survive are likely to be the tougher ones.

Neons can spawn at 12 weeks of age.  This is the typical age of the ones sold in aquarium shops, and generally you are better to avoid using old Neons for breeding.

Newly hatched Neons will eat the infusoria in the tank until they are larger enough to eat small moina, daphnia or newly hatched brine shrimp.

There is some evidence of delayed development in a proportion of the baby Neons, although the mechanism is a little uncertain.

If you have some types of snails in the tank, you may reduce the number of babies you get because the snails may eat some of the eggs.  The snails may also be responsible for increasing the amount of infusoria in the tank, so the surviving fry may grow faster.

Commercial Breeding

The methods of breeding above are not likely to be used by commercial breeders, but commercial breeders are unlikely to release their methods. The general way commercial breeders behave is to produce enormous numbers of fish, and grow them very quickly.  These methods do not produce a very natural fish.  In the wild, thousands of eggs are laid by each school of Neons, but only a tiny number will end up hatching and then growing to maturity; the ones that survive will the ones best suited to survive.  The survivors also need luck. 

Commercial breeding allows the survival of weaker individuals that would not survive in the wild, as well as carefully selected fish significantly different from the wild types.

Conservation Status

Neon Tetras are still present in the wild in millions, and there is no evidence of an immediate threat.  The great majority of Neons sold are commercially bred, but some of the ones caught wild are caught using destructive methods and damage the populations completely out of proportion to the numbers actually sold.  Others are caught with extreme care to preserve the natural population so the people will be able to continue to get an income from their rivers, and preserve the natural beauty of the ecosystem.

There are also major threats from pollution and habitat destruction.  The long-term future of the Neon Tetra and of many other fish is uncertain.