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'Large' Neon Tetra - safe quantity?

1697 Views 8 Replies 6 Participants Last post by  Da Plant Man, 
C
Big Al's has a sale on these coming up this weekend. Assuming the tank is cycled by then, we were going to pick some up.
  • Tank is 50G display with 30G sump (20G water), so 70G total water.
  • The 50G is 36x18x18", 30G is 36x12x16".
  • The only other animals we plan on introducing are Red Cherry shrimp (maybe 25).
  • Tank is 'heavily planted' as of this past weekend.

According to this ( http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=830+2855+1097&pcatid=1097 ), 'large' neon tetra can grow up to 2" and require at least 10G.

So, based on my tank specs and keeping in mind I still want to add shrimp, how many of these could I safely add?

I am thinking a dozen is probably the max to keep things conservative.

Any help is appreciated!

(as a side note, I've seen some references that there is no such thing as a 'jumbo' neon tetra, and it's just a sales ploy to sell adult fish... :S )
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wastedtime
Shrimp have very little bioload, 50 Shrimp in a 50 gallon is negligible,

According to aqadvisor you could add 75 Neon Tetras + 100 Cherry Shrimp to get to a 100% stocking level.. and aqadvisor is generally very conservative.

If you want to try it out : www.aqadvisor.com
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C
Oh, haha, totally forgot about aqadvisor!

Further looking around indicates that 'large' or 'jumbo' neon tetras are just adults. Good to have confirmation on the shrimp bioload, though. Thanks.

Edit: According to the parameters I specified (maybe I got the filter wrong), I am at 121% filter capacity with 16 tetras and 50 shrimp. Still, 16 is plenty for that size tank.
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ThinkTank
i think 10g is listed as the min size so that the fish have some swimming room.

You can put lots of tetras in a 50g. I have over 20 tetras and a dozen cories in a 55g (and 30-40 cherry shrimp).
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Centromochlus
I sure wouldn't put 75 neon tetras in a 50G, but I guess it's possible... 30 max sounds more reasonable to me.
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S
75 would definitely look awesome but good luck keeping shrimp around with tetras in the tank!

---
Get shrimped out!
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C
My understanding is the adults would be safe, but shrimplets not so much - part of the plan, anyway, to use shrimp offspring as partial food source. I'd have a second tank for breeding RCS.

I think we'll probably go with 16 tetras to start.
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Da Plant Man
Start with 16, but IMO, if you are doing weekly waterchanges, you could keep 50 (or more even...) in there easily. With all the plants and such, you'll be fine.
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Da Plant Man
But if you want some other fish like plecos, otos, or rasboras, etc, I would do 30 and then whatever else.
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