How to Breed Neon Tetras, Sexing, Caring for Fry

Looking for a challenging tetra to breed then try breeding Neon Tetras.  These are great fish to try, because the benefit of breeding will stock up your tank.  Neon Tetras are a gorgeous blue and red fish, the sight of these fish in a school is gorgeous and a sight to see.  Neon Tetras go retail for about $2.49 so they can be a little expensive but try to get baby neon's from the store and you can usually get them for around $.99.

Tank Setup: 20 gallon tank with a filter and heater.  I select 10-12 neon tetras for the 20 gallon tank.  Neon Tetras prefer a soft acidic water.  Their are many ways to do this, either your blessed with soft water or you can create it by soaking peat moss in the tank with the filter running.  You can also collect rain water but that can be unsafe because of chemicals, then you can use a reverse osmosis filter.
Next put the spawning mops or java moss in the tank and keep the temperature at 72-74F and put parents in the tank.

Neon Tetras

Conditioning Parent Fish:  After placing them in the tank feeding them 2-3 times a day with frozen or live brine shrimp.  This will help plump them up with eggs.  Slowly raise the temperature up to 76-78F.  I change the water 50% every 3 days to help mimic the wild. 


Sexing Neon Tetras: This is difficult to do the only way to tell is the female is usually plumper, and when it comes to the male courting the female they usually swim in a square pattern.

Once the fish are finished laying eggs you need to remove the parents because they will eat the eggs.  Eggs hatch after around 36 hours.  Then become free swimming after about 5 days.  After the fry are free swimming you can feed the Infusoria, then after a week switch to vinegar eels and baby brine shrimp.

After the fry are around 2 weeks old start doing 25% water changes since all neon tetras are sensitive to water quality.  Great job breeding and raising Neon Tetras.

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