50 Neon Tetras

[jacob]

My brother has a s. rhombeus (black piranha) and for feeder fish we went out and bought about 50 small neon tetras at a really cheap price to last a while. We put the tetras in my 75 gallon that consists of a wide range of such things as sevs, blue rams, cories, gouramies, clown loaches etc... Anyway, I was wondering if there is a good chance the tetras will breed, or since there are so many fish that attempt to even eat them sometimes they won't? Or is it just nothing to attempt at all?

 

[Teelie]

They'll almost certainly breed, then eat the eggs along with the tankmates. I hear they actually will breed easily but then quickly gobble up the eggs. Not sure how true that is but with 50 of them it's likely you'll get some to breed; raising them to just fry in that kind of setting is near impossible.

 

[Lateral Line]

Unless your water is very soft, (unlikely to be soft enough without special preparation), even if the Neons do spawn, the eggs won't hatch. The Calcium ions in the water react with the egg shells making them tough. The eggs develop, but the fry are unable to emerge.

As mentioned above, and eggs and fry in a typical community tank will not stand a chance unless they have parental care, (the cichlids for example).