Neon Tetra....mating?

[zombryn]

Hey everyone.

Thanks to everyone who helped me out last week with my problems.

The tank is all sorted now and actually has 8 neon tetra in it. They've been in there for just under a week now and they're all thriving and seem to be very healthy. However, there's been some different behaviour today and yesterday. They've become quite hyper active - the males seem to be teritorial about the females. One of the females is hiding between a grassy plant in the tank whilst two of the males fight over her. When one of them submits the tetra left goes to her and rubs against her for a while and then the other male comes back and it all repeats. There's more than one female but all the males only seem to be bothering one of them. There's three of them fighting over her at the moment.

They're the only fish in the tank at the moment and all the levels are stable, as is the temperature.

Is this mating behaviour or is it something else?

Thanks in advance for any help/replies

 

[Colin_T]

Sounds like they are breeding. Usually one male with pr up with one female and they swim off into the plants together for a quickie. A few seconds later they come out and swim around with the rest of the group. If you only have one female then the other males will want to breed with her too, but they will fight (not aggressively) for the right to breed with her.

 

[zombryn]

Thanks for that

We have (we think) 5 males and 3 females. They've stopped doing it now but they seemed to be doing pretty much what you said. If they have mated how long will it be untill they lay eggs?

 

[Colin_T]

they will have laid eggs when they were swimming into the plants.
The eggs are unlikely to hatch in a normal aquarium as they are sensitive to light.

 

[zombryn]

Ahh righto then

 

[matchstickman47]

the spawning process looks like the male chasins the female around then they go into somw plants n do it