Neon Neons?

[Sweeden]

Basically been thinking about getting my tank set up to house neon tetras and cardinals (if they tolerate each other)

Whats the best type of lighting and backdrop to make there colour really 'POP' My preferance is to have a nice looking tank. I currently have a Tropiquarium55 Fishtank which measures...
- Length 51.5cm
- Width 26cm
- Depth 33cm

 

[Mo1959]

Hi Sweeden. I believe the recommendations to show up neons colours are a dark substrate and a reasonably heavily planted tank. They prefer dimmish lighting too. Neons and Cardinals will get on well together.

 

[Sweeden]

Hi Sweeden. I believe the recommendations to show up neons colours are a dark substrate and a reasonably heavily planted tank. They prefer dimmish lighting too. Neons and Cardinals will get on well together.

So a dark sand and lots of varied plants?

Similar to this (stolen from ToTM Sept)

 

[Mo1959]

Yup, perfect. Lovely tank isn't it. I have a couple of neons and a couple of glowlights in a two foot tank which are doing a fish in cycle...........water changes every day. However, I picked pool filter sand and the light colour does wash their colours out a bit so if you can get a darker substrate I am sure they will look much nicer.

 

[ZoddyZod]

yep, as MO said, heavily planted and a dark substrate. I'd also advise having a plain black background, this will really make them stand out. That's my tank you've shown there and at some point I'd like to swap the photo background to a simple black one to help the fish colours stand out more.

Yup, perfect. Lovely tank isn't it.

cheers Mo!

 

[Sweeden]

yes i think that i'm going to use black vinyl on the background, im getting good at putting it on without bubbles too

so do i use real plants or is there no real preferance.

 

[achase]

I believe that you could use either fake or real plants. Personally I like real plants and there are some low light plants that are pretty easy to maintain and care for.
The plants I have in my setup (which has neon and glowlight tetras)are java ferns, eel grass and anubias.

 

[Sweeden]

I believe that you could use either fake or real plants. Personally I like real plants and there are some low light plants that are pretty easy to maintain and care for.
The plants I have in my setup (which has neon and glowlight tetras)are java ferns, eel grass and anubias.

cheers for that,best get scouring threads to see how to get the most from plants

 

[waterdrop]

My neons do just fine and look good with lots of Java Ferns, Anubias and Crypts. The plants though are chosen based on being slow growers for use with what's known as "low-light" technique (a set of several things you learn and do that is sometimes called an "approach" within the planted tank community.) Cards/Neons look great with many, many types of plants (as do most tetra shoals) but the plants you choose will have a better chance of doing well if their choice is part of an overall plan of plant maintenance.

With aquarium plants light is a skill set, CO2 is a skill set, nutrition (fertilization) is a skill set and algae-maintenance is a fourth skill set that pulls experience from the first three. Gaining experience can be easy or difficult on the first few tanks, you just never know until you try with your particular tank, water and efforts.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[fluffycabbage]

here are my neons, i dont think they look washed out - i would highly recommend a plain dark blue or black background though, works really well