Are neon tetras hardy?

Neons can live ten years, Cardinals over six. Even in my moderately hard alkaline water I expect 50% survival of a school of either to be over 6 years.

I consider Cardinals marginally hardier than Neons in my tanks.
 
I have my neons for 2 years and I can say that they are pretty hardy fish. Be it good or not, they were my first fish introduced in the tank (I doubt that it was normally cycled, as it was running about 3 weeks without any fish - just water and plants) and never had any problems with them since then.

There was one, however, and there was no cure for that - I called it the twilight zone. Imagine you wish your fish good night and when you wake up, you have 2 fish on the missing list! No corpse, no skeleton, nothing! Like they never existed. I don't even want to think about it now. :(
 
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short and simple

no they are not hardy as mentioned in other posts here "once they are acclimated to the tank etc" they are ok which woul suggest that they are not hardy because they have to be introduced so carefully they are nice fish but drop like flies
 
Disagree w/LMB - a number of years ago when they were all imports and brought in >half grown, their handling was identical to any other Tetra. Only SE Asian beeeding and shipping practices and the responsive shipping from Brazil at too small a size to be able to compete has made them delicate. The fish themselves are not delicate, they are just abused by the hobby, so require extra care for recovery from mistreatent. You can avoid all that if you refuse to buy small fish and only get 1/2 grown Florida bred or Brazilian imports, but most folks will not pay the premium for good fish, so few shops offer them.

Just another case of getting what you are willing to pay for.
 
Although, I love Cardinals and yes they do seem more resilient than the Neons, Cardinals are very hard to come by where I live so I opt for the next best fish, the Neon. As mentioned in previous posts quarantine plays a significant role regarding the health of these fishes. A varied diet, maintaining weekly water changes and keeping more than a few in a tank seems to keep them frisky and healthy.

I maintain 10 in my 55 gallon with Lemon Tetra's, Black Neons and one common pleco. My water parameters are:

Temp: 78-80 degrees
Gh - 5dh
Kh- 2dh
Nitrite- 0
Ammonia -0
Ph- 7.0 :)
 
I would also agree that cardinals are a little hardier that neons though both types have done well in my own hard alkaline water.They willl appreciate stable water contiions and can die real fast if they are subjected to fast changes in water chemistry (just ask my brother - I think it took him about 5 seconds to kill a neon by netting it out of a planted tank and putting it directly in an unplanted with 0 acclimation time..). NTD has proven impossible to treat and I have unfortunately been forced to euthanise those very few that have showed the symptoms of the disease...a real heart-breaker when that happens :)
 
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