Neon Tetra Question

[scv87]

What is a good amount of neon tetras in 10 gallon tank? Also, I know that these are schooling fish, but will they always stay close or do they take up all of the tank?

[Fishiebusiness]

if theyre the only fish in there, i'd go with 10-15. They stop schooling after they get used to the tank, and only scaring them will make them school again.

[JamisonBWolsh]

you can add a "bully" fish in the mix...they would school more often...

[Pootspete]

My beta shares a ten gallon with ten neons.

[Rocketman]

Try 10 Neons and 6 cardinal tetras. Having the two species may add a little tension to the mix, make them school a little easier.

[><>FunSize<><]

HOw do u tell the sex of neons cause i want to breed some i brough 20 2day

[Devil]

It's kind of hard, but the female has a more rounded belly then the male

[Faramir]

Oh, and funsize, you ought to know that breeding neons is not soup and nuts.

[Skippy]

Soup and Nuts?
heh

It's downright difficult to do well. But if you search on the web in the last few years there was a big research project done by a university in florida on how to get them to spawn more readily and produce better offspring.

[Frank_Carr]

I've got 6 in my 10 gallon along with 2 albino corys, a dwarf puffer, and a South American bumblebee catfish. As others said, you could squeeze a few more in with fewer other fish.

[wetmanNY]

Huddling from fright isn't the same reaction as schooling. You can call it "shoaling" to distinguish them. Clown Loaches jammed behind the filter intake in the dealer's empty tank.

Two schools in a confined space is like two classes that let out at the same time. Fish begin to have a recognizable schooling reaction when you have a couple of dozen alone together, in a tank that's three times as long as the average length of the school. If you aren't seeing coordinated swimming movements, you aren't seeing a school.

[Skippy]

I have 17 cardinals in a 100 gallon where they are some of the biggest fish in there, and I get to see them swim in formation. it's what makes them so attractive to me.

[val]

Have to diagree with Rocketman a bit. Cardinals do better at warmer temps -- say 79 to 83 -- which is why you see them so often with discus. Neons thrive better at lower temps, 72 degrees or so. I wouldn't mix them...

Val

[JeffP]

Aren't neons, cardinal tetras, discus, and angelfish found in similar native environments....warm amazonian water?

[carpguy]

The Amazon is a big river and even bigger when you look at the whole basin, with all the tributaries, etc.: water conditions and temps vary throughout. A given fish may be widespread or adapted to narrow ranges and specific local conditions, temps.

Look at the Mississippi, add on the Ohio and Missouri and all the rest. Its a similar sort of scale, if not quite as tropical. Big and extremely varied.