Breeding Neons

[hitm4n666]

how can i breed neons in my current tank w/o seperating them from the rest??

[bs6749]

You may not want to. What do you have in the tank right now and how large is it?

Generally for neons you will want a group of 6-10 in a 10 gallon "species only" tank. In that tank you will want to have some sort of moss (java moss works well from what I hear). You will want to feed them live food for 5-7 days. The tank will need to be covered and "blacked out" for a period of time. Also, you will have to check/adjust the pH in order to get them to spawn along with dropping the water temperature by several degrees in order to get this to work. I'm not sure if it's true with neons, but cardinals that have been kept in a neutral to more alkaline water very often become sterile and are unable to reproduce. This may be because most cardinals that are imported are wild and they go from a rather acidic pH of 5.0 give or take to alkaline water. Most neons are bred commercially so they are adjusted to these conditions from the start. Here is a link to a thread involving cardinal breeding: Cardinal Breeding Diary.. - SimplyDiscus HTH. Good luck!

[hitm4n666]

thx but i have another question its like 85 degrees and i have to keep the neons at like 72-76 degrees how do i do that i cant stand next to the tank and keep changing the water

[bs6749]

Why do you HAVE to keep them at that temperature? Generally breeding of South American species will be triggered by a drop in temperature and a drop in water pressure which mimics the rainy season coming. It'd be better IMO to keep them at 82 degrees and then do a large water change and get the temperature down to 78. You could even use rainwater to do the change as the pH will be more of what you are looking to achieve anyhow.

Evaporation is a cooling process. You could open the lid on your tank and then have a fan blowing over the top of the surface of the water. This won't really be what you want but it should keep the water several degrees cooler than the air on a hot day.

[thatmagicguy]

I have bred neons and was one of the first people in the US to breed them on a commercial basis. It took me 3 years to develop a breeding program that worked. Neons and cardinals breed in totally different circumstances.

Your plan to have viable young in a maintenance tank will only be successful by chance, the likelyhood of any young surviving is slim, even slimmer is the chance of eggs being fertilized and hatching.

In a nutshell, I kept my males and females separate. They were only brought together for spawning. I spawned mine in 2 or 5 gallon tanks. I used bare tanks with no plants or anything. I used nylon mesh draped in the tank for the eggs to fall through so the parents could not eat them. The parents had 1 and a half to two inches of water above the spawning net.

The parents were conditioned and maintained in regular tap water. The spawning tanks were filled with water in the 5.5 pH range with zero hardness. Moving the parents from tap to this water for spawning and back to their regular tanks had no adverse effect on the breeders.

By keeping the sexes separate and conditioning them on live food you are practically guaranteed to have spawning activity within 24 hours of them being introduced to each other. Breeders were removed from the breeding tank in 48 hours if spawning did not occur.

I placed breeders in spawning tanks in the evening, and usually the ambient light from sunrise would trigger spawning. Usually spawning was completed by afternoon. Breeders were removed to their regular tanks.

Spawns ranged from a few dozen to 150 or so eggs. I banked on 50 live fry from each pair. I usually raised more, but sometimes less. I put together a dozen to twenty pairs at a time. I moved the eggs to 1/4 gallon plastic tanks to hatch.

The eggs hatch within 24 hours and the fry start feeding at 4-5 days. I used a rich culture of pure infusoria and using the small tanks insured the fry and food came into contact with one another. The fry were not active hunters and very pelagic in behavior. After a week to 14 days they started accepting newly hatched brine shrimp that were very small, I sifted the shrimp to get the smallest ones. Once they started eating shrimp the growth was rapid.

Feeding young neons in rearing tanks is an art form. They will over eat and their bodies will burst. Feeding must be done carefully and water quality is maintained by water changes daily. I used regular tap water for water changes. Once fry were eating shrimp the mortality was very close to zero.

Some problems with neons are that many freshly bought broodstock seem to be sterile. But after several pairings they start to produce viable eggs. Another problem is color, home bred neons will not achieve a brilliant red unless fed proper foods.

Temperature was never an issue unless the fish room got to hot. Then breeding would cease.

I sold domestic bred neons along with my guppy strains for awhile, but ceased breeding neons simply because other fish brought a better price at less effort.

Hope this helps.
Bill