Re: Breeding cardinal tetras

[Vahe Ganapetyan <vahe at hotbox_ru>]

Hi Stephan,

Cardinal tetras are very difficult to breed in captivity. Lemon tetras and
others aren't nearly as hard. First, you need very very soft water for
the eggs to get fertilized. You may use EDTA though to soften the
water to almost negligible hardness which they require. Next, the eggs
are very sensitive to bacteria and light. Where they live, water is
dark brown because of the humine acids from the fallen leaves, is very
soft, and there is virtually no light. You will hardly be able to meet
these conditions in a planted tank :) People breed them in small
one-gallon sterile tanks. Even if you manage to get some fry, the
people who had bred them tell, they are very hard to raise, food
should be virtually sticking to their nose before they would try to
swallow it. And they are also very sensitive to bacteria, if you feed
paramecium, you need lots of it, and it should be left without food
for a day in clean fresh water (paramecium feeds on bacteria) and then
properly sterilized before being fed to cardinal tetras. Even if
properly fed, small numbers of fry would survive. I suggest that you
try simpler tetras if you want to breed them in a planted tank

Vahe

APD> Anybody have any luck with breeding cardinal tetras in planted tanks? What's
APD> the recipee? I know it must involve a male and a female, but what else?

APD> Thanks
APD> Stephan