# Breeding Dither Fish



## CuzIsaidSo (Oct 13, 2009)

Anybody ever breed neon tetras? If it isn't that difficult I would like to try. So if it's doable (is that a word) let me know what I'll have to do.


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## Trigga (Jul 1, 2006)

the eggs are extremely light sensitive and its really hard to do it in the home aquarium


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## CuzIsaidSo (Oct 13, 2009)

Yeah I read up on tetras. Think I'm gonna go with some platy's they're livebearers and easy to breed. Just wanna breed em for some dither fish


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## kove32 (Oct 26, 2004)

Might just be worth buying them for $1 a piece. The only thing that would make a decent dither is convicts.. even those take awhile to grow out.


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## Plowboy (Apr 9, 2008)

I would use guppies or cons. They're way more prolific. I have guppies, cons, and platys. The guppies breed stupid fast, the cons are plenty quick, and after close to a year I probably have around 60 platys. I started with close to the same number of each.

None of the fish contain thiaminase, so its not a huge deal if your toothy pet decides to use them as his staple diet.

Also, cons can be major dickheads. If you choose to go that route make sure they arent bullying your aquarium's apex predator.


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## notaverage (Sep 10, 2005)

True plow...I never breed guppies though...just bought 3 females and a male last week though to see if it just happened on its own in my trop tank.


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## CuzIsaidSo (Oct 13, 2009)

Don't wanna do cons I heard they're dicks. I think I'm gonna setup a breeding tank with platy's, guppies and neon tetras (just to see) How many of each fish (male/female ratio) would be the best for breeding and what size tank should I get?


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## Plowboy (Apr 9, 2008)

For guppies, get a few females and just one or 2 males. Look for females with a huge dark gravid spot (see picture below). Those ones are already pregnant.

The ratio I would use for platys is one male to 2 females. It's harder to tell if the platys are knocked up, but it is possible. They will get pretty fat and if the fish is lightly colored you might even see something that pretty similar to the gravid spot in guppies.

I have know idea on the tetras. I doubt they will breed anyways.

You can stuff them in pretty much any size of tank you want, but I would put them in as big of a tank your willing to buy for them. A big tank with a few hundred guppies is crazy to look at.

Also, all of these fish will eat the fry, but I've had good luck with just giving them a ton of cover and leaving the adults in the tank.


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## CuzIsaidSo (Oct 13, 2009)

Thanks Plowboy, anything else you think I should know (temp, water changes ect...) to make breeding easier let me know. Prob gonna get a 30gal

I know it's a longshot for the tetras to breed but would they be more likely to breed if there were a pair or if I got 10+ of em?


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## Plowboy (Apr 9, 2008)

My tank is set at 78 degrees. The ph is 8.2. Gh and kh are retarded high. I don't do anything special with water changes, ph, lights, chemicals, or anything else. I have an AC802 powerhead in the tank, but in a 125g tank thats not a lot of flow. They get fed whatever I decide to toss in that day. The guppies and platys do seem to like algae too.

It's just a cycled tank with fish in it. Nothing special is needed to kick off the breeding process for the guppies and platys, so your free to do whatever you choose to try to get the tetras to breed.

Hiding spots and cover are probably the most important. Really dense plants like densa, wisteria, java moss would be good to add. Using large gravel will probably help the fry hide too.

To help get your numbers up right away only feed the males to your p for the first few months.

That's all I can think of right now.

I don't know about the tetras. I'm doing some reading on them right now because I think it would be cool to breed them. I'll post any good sites I find and any other good info I run across.


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## CuzIsaidSo (Oct 13, 2009)

Do you use any fert for the plants or anything else? My tap ph is 6.6, ok? Is a 30gal to small to leave the fry in?


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## Plowboy (Apr 9, 2008)

No ferts are needed for the plants. All of those plants will grow perfectly well in low light simple planted tank.

30g is fine. Mine were doing well in their old 30g too. They even did well in the heavily planted 10g I started the whole guppy and platy thing in.

6.6 for a pH is great. To breed the tetras it appears you even want to go lower than that ideally, but people are getting it done at that.

You don't have to follow exactly what I did on my tank, except the cover and hiding spots if you want to leave the parents in. My tank is far from optimal for this. The guppies and platys are going to breed no matter what. They would probably even breed in a 20oz pop bottle.


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## CuzIsaidSo (Oct 13, 2009)

I've been reading up on tetra breeding and I think I'ma get 10+ neon tetra for the 30gal and get a 5gal and put a 2 tetras in it and see if I could get em to breed. There's alot of different info on getting tetras to breed so I'ma read up some more and see what sounds best.


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## hyphen (Apr 4, 2004)

for what it's worth, i put in 12 feeder guppies into my snapper tank. a few survived and have since been quite elusive. the number has replenished to about 16-20 and this is with crappy water conditions. the things were pretty much living off of turtle pellet scraps and poop. i don't think you'll have any problems breeding them.


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