Green Neon Tetras

[r.w.girard]

I am planning on buying a little school of maybe 6-8 green neon tetras for my 10 gallon planted tank. Its tank mates will include a betta, 3 otocinclus, 3 ghost shrimp and an ivory mystery snail.

St. Louis, MO seems to be devoid of green neon tetras. I have called every pet store and aquatic retailer in the metropolitan area and have yet to find a single one that cares green neon tetras or could get green neon tetras. I was think, then, that I would buy some online [I need to buy a bunch of java ferns for a 5 gallon dwarf puffer tank I am planning on setting up] and the only place that I have found then is from Arizona Aquatic Gardens.

This brings me to a number of questions:

1. Does anyone have any green neon tetras for sale in St. Louis?
2. Does anyone have any experience with AZ Aquatic Gardens?
3. Does anyone know of a better web-site that stocks green neon tetras?
4. Will green neon tetras survive in the mail or are they too delicate?

5. Is it better to have an even or odd numbered school?

I would love to get some of these. They would be great in my tank!

 

[Essjay]

I can't help with 1. to 3. as I'm in the UK, but last year I got some by mail. I too couldn't find any in the shops, then some came up on ebay. The seller was a well respected one in this country, and he had a lot of them that he was auctioning in batches of 10 and 20. I won a shoal of 10. When they arrived, they were very tiny - the seller did say that in his description and that he'd kept them for a few weeks to grow them a bit before selling them. One was dead on arrival, but the other 9 are still swimming happily in my tank.

The seller gave his water condtions on the ebay listing, so I knew that he had softer, more acidic water than me. Because I had that info, I acclimated them slowly, adding a few mls of tankwater a time to the bag over a couple of hours. If you do get mail order fish, I'd ask the seller what his conditions are like if they don't tell you up front.


And with point 5, I don't think odd/even numbers matter with fish like these.