Breeding Neon Tetras - Over 100 Fry!

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[rickfromthecape]

There was an older gentleman who owned a small local fish store where I grew up. He introduced me to the hobby years ago. He used to breed neons for his shop and what he did was fill the bottom of the tank (ten gallon) with small marbles. The eggs would easily fall through the gaps between the marbles and the adults couldn't fit through.

[mt]

Wonderful video! I'm a 54 year old fish nerd, and I am just so pleased to see a younger person with such passion for fish! You're sharing excellent information in an easy to absorb format. Thank you so much! I especially enjoy watching your videos because I'm dealing with cancer and don't have the energy to continue experimenting with fish breeding and keeping myself, but it's almost as much fun getting to watch you do it. Your videos take me to a happy fishy place where I can forget the difficulties of life for a time, and that is a real gift! I wish you much success and joy with your fishy endeavors, and I hope you get to have many, many happy years sharing your fish knowledge.

[mikecritchlow]

50 years ago I was reading about how to breed egg scatterers like Neons, Danios etc and the advice then was to put a double layer of marbles in the tank to catch and protect the eggs. Also to keep the water level fairly shallow so that the eggs wouldn't get caught and eaten by the parents, or other fish, before they settled into the marbles.

[jlathem]

This fish is definitely in the top 5 list of fish I want to breed one day.

Thanks for sharing your experiences.

[seangere]

With most small Tetra species i find it is best to mark the pairs that successfully breed, if it is their first time breeding for you, and breed them a few times to get more fry. Ofcourse keep trying to breed other pairs. Then once you have 100 or so wait till they are almost old enough to breed and start pulling out the best looking ones and get them set up in 5gl tanks with only a couple of the same sex, 5 to 10. Once they are sexualy mature pair them up in separate tanks. Also i have found to have a large carpet of Java moss covering the entire bottom of the tank. Wait till midday after introduced to one another and pull the pair even if you don't see any spon. Wait a few days and recondition them for another spawn. Repeat this a couple of times, making sure to put the same pairs together each time. Once you have had a couple of successful spawns from a pair give them a week off then start conditioning them again and switch the pairs. Breed them 3 or so times for each possible pair. Then at the end only keep the best of the best from each spawn. And start over again. Doing it this way keeps them from inbreeding too much and keeps them healthier and your breeding project going longer and more stable.
Neons and Cardinal Tetras are my two favorite Tetra species with Blacklight Tetras as my third favorite.

[davidfromsurin]

Great vid. I breed danios and the process is very similar. Like you, when I started I was only getting 10-20 fry at a time until I found out the best game changing method of adding a mesh basket suspended half way down the 5 gallon tank. This will allow the eggs to fall through and not be eaten. It also allows you to leave the parents in for 2, 3, 4 days or until you see fry sticking to the glass. The remove the parents. My last batch 8 days ago I had 6 danios in one tank and it resulted in 527 fry. Yep I counted each and every one of them. Good luck. Neons are my next fish to try and breed.

[audrameyer]

I came for the fish but the dog stole my heart 🥰 Gorgeous pup!

[justinread]

I used to use marbles as a base material for breeding black neons ( no reason I just never tried normal neons ) I found the gaps helped to stop predation. I always wanted to make a drop tank with a net bottom so the eggs could fall through and the adults couldn't get to them. Unfortunately a divorce ( a very common thing in the fish trade lmao ) stopped me from ever trying it.
Your videos are getting so much better these days, keep up the great work.

[brunocampos]

Poor Sam... He was enjoying his best life 🤣🤣🤣

[Natarii]

Really great to see the whole process of trial and error. Definitely helps me to understand the work of small stores maintaining stock.

[sereiu]

Congratulations man, your work is fantastic, I'm your fan, your work with the neon tetras is fantastic. 🤩🤩🤩

[steve-adams]

Your experience with these guys reminds me a lot of my time with CPDs. Very similar in how they hatch rapidly and proceed to sit around for a week, then scoot around a bit for another.

I also had heaps of issues with spawn robbing and ended up using an air lift to pull the eggs from a laying site into a breeding box (I 3d printed a neat little funnel-like system with stainless steel mesh on top which allows the eggs to funnel down to the air lift tube). Up until I was able to mostly rule out spawn robbing, I kept getting only 2 or 3 fry at a time despite knowing these fish were dropping dozens of eggs per day. That was frustrating.

Once spawn robbing was ruled out, I'm not sure why but I was having fairly high death rates. Maybe close to 50%. I'd spot around a dozen babies in the breeding box and wind up with 6-8 babies within 2 weeks of that time. Oddly enough, placing heaps of botanicals and sand in the breeding box (typically a huge no; most people I know keep them virtually sterile) along with a few shrimp, snails, and scuds of all things led to massive success. The babies love it in there. I haven't had notable losses in a long time.

That breeder box is a bizarre little spot. It looks like the bottom of a stream's pool in the woods. Sticks, seed pods, a bit of moss, sand and malm, etc. I was sure something would predate the eggs and to be honest, I was temporarily using the breeding box to culture the scuds. It was pure coincidence that the conditions happened to lead to way more fry surviving. Maybe it's a food thing? Who knows. I have way too many CPDs now, which is a really fun problem to have.

All that is to say who the hell knows how any of this works or why. It's so fun to experiment and figure things out.

I know what you mean about not wanting to part with the babies. People will pay $6-$8 for a CPD here, but the first ones I raised from fries are worth so much more to me. I don't think I'll ever sell them.

[HoosierTactical]

I have a group of 6 neon tetras and I did a water change with cooler water then normally and about 30 mins later I noticed they were chasing/breeding and I seen a bunch of eggs but none hatched because they were in my tap water. Was cool to see specially because I wasn’t even trying to breed them lol

[ZenCoryCat]

I love these breeding videos. Thank you!

[FaultAndDakranon]

I bought bug buffet from you, and I haven't met a fish that didn't love it. You were right, the quality is worth the price ❤

[ericb]

As someone else mentioned, i would use mosquito screen to keep the eggs and fish separate. You could also use egg crate/light defuser as backing for it. I would have it a few cm off the bottom. You could also use your pond baskets too in the tank.

[Van-ps]

How wonderful is your work, Oh Lord. Thank You for creating fish

[AfiiPlay]

Finally, In our nearest aquarium, they have neon tetras. I bought a pair of them. They're so small, difficult to find if ones a female. Anyway I'm glad to have them. I wanna raise them right.

[FishkeepingFriend]

Nice experimentation and a good result in the end. Thanks for sharing this.

[matthew_thefallen]

I love Sam in these videos 😂 such a beautiful doggie 😊