Odd Neon Tetra Fry

[Rewth]

i havea 10 gallon tank with 5 neon tetras in it and some pretty good ground covering plastic plants. used to have a pair of platies but i decided to move them off to a new tank.

this is my firsttank ever, and i've only had it for 3 months or so. 2 weeks after i pulled the platies i started poking around looking for a glass shrimp that was also in the tank originally. unfortunately i found his body under the cover. so i lifted up the plant to better remove it.

and out swam a dozen little fry.

turns out they are neon tetras. they are about a quarter of an inch now and there are somewher between 5 and 8 of them still alive. they are swimming pretty freely around the tank only occasionally being pestered by the adults.

its been a blast watching them and hoping they manage to survive to adulthood.

here's the interesting part. one of the fry is almost completely black. its definitely a neon tetra, he's jsut black from bout the gills back. is this normal? any chance it'll retain the coloration if he gets larger? wish i could get a pic, but my camera isn't too great, and its still pretty rare to see him out and about long enough to get a shot.

[salman]

Neon Tetras are soo small.. i wonder how the fry looks. Congrats on your new babies.

[RobbieG]

I'm not sure about the coloration - but I wanted to congratulate you on the babies!

[gm72]

Coloration variations are pretty normal in most fish, but not so sure about neons. Don't worry about it, but make sure you are feeding them either fry-specific foods or just finely crushed flake food. Be sure the fry have tons of hiding spaces.

[troy]

Congrats on the fry.:19:

[MeganL3985]

Awe! I bet the babies are so cute! :D Congrats!

[2manyfish]

I will guarantee you those are platy fry not neons. Unless you've kept the lights off over the tank and the room is very dark they can't be neon fry. The eggs of neons are UV sensitive meaning that light will kill them.
Still, you can enjoy the platy fry! They are wonderful little fish.... :thumb:

[RobbieG]

Most neon fry would die in most tanks - They are almost impossible to see until they are large enough to handle light so many people probably never even know that they had fry.

But sometimes people get lucky and they are protected by plants - or in his case the "plastic ground covering plants" - I have had it happen to me in a planted tank. In my case it was just one single fry that made it - I never knew anything was happening till I did a head count and came up with one too many - the one too many being a tiny little 1/4 inch lucky little guy that I still have

[Lady Hobbs]

A[Only Registered Users Can See Links.] would love to have some baby neons. I would put them in a breeder net to keep them safe tho and make sure you keep that water changed.

I only had 4 neons up until yesterday. One always stayed alone for some reason and seldom would swim with the others in the 8 months I've had them. This morning he is gone, tho. Apparently died and was lunch for the loaches as no body is there.

[RobbieG]

They are REALLY good at that aren't they. I hardly even look for fish if they don't make roll call anymore in my loach tank.

[Rewth]

turns out that 2manyfish is absolutely right. they are platy fry. finally got a good look at the caudal fins and they are definitely rounded, not forked. the dorsal fins are also generally the wrong shape... looks like i might have at least one high fin in the lot, but most are very rounded. would also explain the darker one if its a tuxedo or something like that. wonder what hte genetics are for those traits. as far as i knew the mother was a orange mickey mouse and was only around others completely identical to it.

regardless... that tank can definitely not handle those platies. i'll have to find a way of passing them along if they survive beyond bout 3/4". though i might keep two of them in my other tank, was planning to get a total of four platies in it.