Neon tetra breeding

[wildroseofky]

I have three neon tetras, one female and two males. The female has spawned a couple of times and is now showing signs of doing it again. I have never seen any little ones so I assume that the shrimp, snails or mollies ate the eggs or the light killed them. Is there any way to collect the eggs and incubate them? They are so small I can barely see them. The female tetra keeps going to the same clump of plants and releasing her eggs so I was wonder if I could put something in their that the eggs would stick too. Then I could remove it to another tank set up for them. I have been Googling this but have not found anything positive on getting the eggs to hatch. I am not the best researcher though. I have had excellent luck with ghost shrimp which I am told never breed in a tank so I thought I would try the neons.

 

[wildroseofky]

Okay, after posting this I checked my tank. I was checking the powerhead that I use to distribute my CO2 and saw a fry. I looked closer and discovered a ton of small fry swimming in the water lettuce at the top of the tank. I didn't see them this morning. I only have mollies and neons in this tank. They do not look like molly fry and they are swimming in a school at the top of my tank. Are they neon tetras? The three adult tetras are kinda schooling with them and the mollies are ignoring them.

 

[Andy Sager]

Yes, those look like Molly fry. Neon fry will not look like fish until after they have hatched, absorbed their yolk sac and then started swimming and eating.

The best way I know to save the Neon eggs is to breed them in a separate tank and remove the parents after the spawn. The eggs will be layed in the plants so you will have to depend on the female's depleted size to gauge when they have spawned. You'll need to learn how to culture infusoria as a first food as neon fry are extremely small and so they need extremely small foods until they get bigger.
For tetra breeding in general, you don't want to breed them in a community type setting as their eggs are a treat for the other fish and rarely get to hatch in a community tank. Filtering should be done with a sponge filter and don't forget, their eggs are photosensitive so no lights until after they hatch.

Hope this helps

 

[juanrivas16]

if you want to start a infosuria culture you will need:

- 1 jar ( make sure you can close it tightly )
- and some lettuce

First you fill the jar with water from your aquarium, it's better if the tank is planted because there will be some infosuria in the water ( infosuria is just the word used to describe a community of microorganisms usually conformed by: phytoplankton, protozoa's, zooplankton, etc ) Then add some lettuce leaves in the jar, close it and put it near a window where sunlight will "hit" the jar. Wait for the water to turn slightly white and cloudy, this will be the bacteria feeding on the lettuce, the zooplankton will feed on the bacteria, the protozoa's will feed on the lettuce, and phytoplankton will be good with the sunlight ( due to the fact that phytoplankton is mostly a "vegetable" life form, so it will turn the energy of the light into chemical energy ), in a few weeks the water will turn pink slightly red or slightly brown, this is simply the infosuria in great abundance once this happens you can simply feed the fry. A good thing about infosuria is that due to the wide variety of microorganisms the fry have plenty types of food to choose from

 

[dragonfisher33]

- 1 jar ( make sure you can close it tightly )
- and some lettuce

why did you say "make sure you can close it tightly"? does it have to be airtight?

 

[wildroseofky]

Thanks, I will make some for my baby ghost shrimp. I have had my ghost shrimp ( Palaeomonidae) reproduce to the point I am going to have to move some to other tanks. I was feeding them Hakari First Bites but ran out. All of my girls are berried again. My tetras started their spawning dance again last night. I have two males and one female. She had developed a bigger lumpy belly again. The males have been staking out different places in the plants. One will come over to the female and dance around her for a while. Then he will get her to follow him to his plant. At that point the other male runs over and starts ramming him and the female runs off. I am getting some more tetras so hopefully I will have more females. I just acquired another ten gallon tank and I think I will set up a more natural breeding tank for them with lots of leaf litter. I wonder if indirect light would bother them. I am going to add some low light plants.

 

[juanrivas16]

why did you say "make sure you can close it tightly"? does it have to be airtight?

It's good that the jar can be closed so other microorganisms or bacteria that may be harmful to the fish or protozoa's don't get in the water inside the jar

 

[dragonfisher33]

when you make infusoria in a jar, won't that jar of liquid become smelly or toxic due to the lack of water movement and bacteria build-up? also, how do you feed the infusoria? dump the jar into the tank?

 

[juanrivas16]

when you make infusoria in a jar, won't that jar of liquid become smelly or toxic due to the lack of water movement and bacteria build-up? also, how do you feed the infusoria? dump the jar into the tank?

R
It won't become toxic, it will be smelly, the zooplankton will feed on bacteria so you don't have to worry about bacteria build up, bacteria will build up before the culture is ready, that's when the water turns cloudy. To feed infosuria take a small amount of water from the jar ( without taking any of the lettuce ) and simply feed the fry with it, don't dump the whole jar because the waters quality will go down ( lower pH, lower hardness, lower amounts of oxygen dissolved in the water, etc )