Neon Tetra

[Rdizzle]

Hey, dad's thinking of getting a new tank, looking in the region of around 40g and he really wants some Neon's in there. He asked me if i knew how big they get and what to feed them on etc. I'll do a look on the net later when i get home but i thought i'd ask you lot what with your wealth of experience etc lol.

I assume they'll eat anything like most tropical fish (Anything being flakes, freeze dried blood worms etc)

 

[flash22]

neon's only get to about an 1- 1 1/2 inches other tetras get bigger tho.food wise mine dont mind flake and come to the top for feeding too. my black skirt's like the blood worm but neons are a bit small at the mo to take the worm and like finer flake food.

 

[lawrie]

i feed mine on frozen brine shrimp, small cut up bits of blood worm and flakes. i give them flakes twice a day for 4 days, one day blood worm, and one day brine shrimp...and give them a no food day, helps keep the tank nice and clean and also helps them digest their food.

 

[lilfishie]

neons get to 1-1 1/2 inch great little fish but quite delicate, cardinals are very similar slightly bigger but a lot hardier, a mixture of the two looks great

 

[Rdizzle]

Hmm, I'll tell him that when i see him next. Thanks for the advice. I'd have never have thought to leave them a day to digest their food. Could that go for all fish or just small ones like neons?

 

[timmystood]

Could go for all rish really. Flake food is quite rich so they don't need much. Having a 'rest' day is quite useful every now and again. A lot of mine get 'rest' days because i'm too busy to feed them!

 

[rdd1952]

cardinals are very similar slightly bigger but a lot hardier, a mixture of the two looks great

This is kind of off the OP but I wanted to share what I was told today. Actually, I had always heard that cardinals were more hardy than neons but I was looking for neons or cardinals today and stopped at 2 places. One had some very small neons but no cardinals and the other had neither. I asked about cardinals in the second store (both were true fish stores) and the owner, who I trust, said he couldn't get them any more because the distributors wouldn't get them because there was too much die off. He said that according to the distributor, they generally had in excess of 50% die off with cardinals when they got them in and not even close to that with neons. I told him I had always heard that cardinals were much more hardy than neons and he said that they weren't any more and that most neons that his distributors got were farm bred and tough as nails. He said you could put them in battery acid and they would live (I know that's an exageration just to make a point). After I left the store, I got started thinking that on my occasional trips the the LFS (I generally stop in to them every 2 or 3 month) around my area, I haven't seen cardinals in ages. So maybe the old thoughts that cardinals are more hardy than neons may not be true any more. Has anyone else seen cardinals in their area or heard anything about cardinals being very delicate now?

 

[Musho3210]

hmm i think the whole what is hardier thing is down to where you got them. Some neons, like guppies, have been inbred so much that there immune system is very weak. But other neon distributors and breeders may do there best to not let inbreeding happen.

 

[lilfishie]

i have found cardinals to be hardier myself but there always bigger than the neons you get around here so maybe thats why, but over all i have had good success with both, especially when together and one shoal. i have noticed a drop in the number of cardinals i see so you may well be right rrd

 

[rdd1952]

i have noticed a drop in the number of cardinals i see so you may well be right rrd

That was the part that really got me thinking. Now that I thnk back, I can't remember the last time I saw a cardinal in a LFS.

 

[Thirdfloor]

i have noticed a drop in the number of cardinals i see so you may well be right rrd

That was the part that really got me thinking. Now that I thnk back, I can't remember the last time I saw a cardinal in a LFS.

I've only seen them once in my 2 LFS's and they didn't look so great.

 

[Rdizzle]

I've never seen any cardinals in any of the 3 LFS in my area and none in the 2 ones i've been to in Rhyll

 

[clittermouse]

I have seen cardinals in my lfs which is in birstall leicestershire, they caught my eye as they are bigger than my regular neons that i got from there and as i walked past the tank it was there size that made me stop and look at them.
that was only a couple of days ago when i picked up some female mollies from there

 

[J-Bird]

There is always a ton of neons at my local fish places but i have only seen a couple of time they had some cardinals and the numbers were often really small. Only 5-6 cardinals in there at a time whereas there was tons of neons available.

 

[siamese king]

neon tetras eat most tropical food and grow to about 1.1inch