# Cheap bulk neon tetras



## Kimchi24 (Mar 22, 2013)

Just wondering where I can purchase 30 neon tetras or so and a decent price? Would big Al's give a some sort of discount if I purchase so many? Haha


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## pyrrolin (Jan 11, 2012)

If you aren't in a major hurry and want a challenge, buy half a dozen or so and try to breed them


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## xriddler (Feb 16, 2012)

most chinese aquarium places give you 50 for 50 and i thought it was very hard to breed cardinal and neons from some previous articles i read.


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## Kimchi24 (Mar 22, 2013)

yeah, i've read into breeding them. I think im way to lazy and novice to do that haha. 50 for 50 still seems rather high. i've seen posts on the internet about people getting 30 for 15 bucks or even 50 for 15 bucks. i guess these are for breeders or something


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## xriddler (Feb 16, 2012)

i dont know where you reading up on that info but in terms of Toronto the cheapest i have seen is a dollar a tetra unless big als has a sale for 3 for $1.99 or sometimes 4 for $1.99 thats still just 50 cents each. if ever you find 50 for $15 please share though cause i will jump on that ship like superman i tell yea!


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## Kimchi24 (Mar 22, 2013)

xriddler said:


> most chinese aquarium places give you 50 for 50 and i thought it was very hard to breed cardinal and neons from some previous articles i read.


would dragon aquarium be one of these places?


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## xriddler (Feb 16, 2012)

lol i see you read my previous thread i made about them? unless you are talking about the one in downtown. the one at steeles and midland had them but at the moment i think they only have cardinal tetras.


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## FynePrint (Jan 21, 2013)

Yeah Dragon has cardinals... 20 for $25. 50 for $50. I got 20 a month ago, only lost one out of the bunch.


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## Kimchi24 (Mar 22, 2013)

FynePrint said:


> Yeah Dragon has cardinals... 20 for $25. 50 for $50. I got 20 a month ago, only lost one out of the bunch.


I guess that's my best bet. Are cardinals harder to care for than neon tetras?


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## FynePrint (Jan 21, 2013)

Personally, I never had any luck with neons. I would by them on sale from BA and within a month or two they would be all gone. As for my cardinals, I thought I would have lost a lot, if not all of them byt now because they were so tiny when I got them from Dragon Aquarium. But they are doing well in my 55gallon. I do nothing special just do my weekly water change and vacuum.


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## xriddler (Feb 16, 2012)

The truth with Big als fishes that go on sale is that they never get quarantined long enough in the store. big als basically gets them a fwe days before their sales so they don't acclimatize well and then we go and swoop them up from the store which stresses them out some more. Before buying neon and cardinals its always good to talk to the store owners/employees to see how long they have been kept in the tank imho.


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## jamie (Feb 20, 2013)

*neons 1$ ea*

I saw some neons last week at Aquapets on Silver Star(?) across from the Pacific mall, they were a buck each, they had a tank full, looked OK. I have never bought any fish from them so I can't comment on health or care.

Bought 10 neons for 15$ at NAFB on Kingston Rd on Saturday. 50cents more per fish, but they look like they take good care of their stock. They look good in the QT tank, bright and active. For 5 bucks, Id rather have some confidence, I don't think you can even get a big mac w fries for 5$. Id look at NAFB, they'll order extra if you ask... maybe you can request a bulk discount?

As for Big Als (scar), I was there 3 days after the weekend sale to look at the phantoms, but all they had left looked sick and tattered.


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## Kimchi24 (Mar 22, 2013)

it's probably better to buy good quality ones rather than get a huge bunch and have massive casualties. Thanks for all the fast replies by the way. Also will there be a breeding problem if i out neon/cardinals in with yellow shrimps?


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## xriddler (Feb 16, 2012)

Kimchi24 said:


> Also will there be a breeding problem if i out neon/cardinals in with yellow shrimps?


I don't really understand the question. Breeding problem for the shrimp or the fish?

Second how big is your tank? If you are planning to breed your tetras you should seriously consider doing it separate from your shrimps as the bio load may fluctuate with the increase in food you provide the fish to prep them for spawning.

If you are talking about if your shrimp/lets will survive then depends on the amount of hiding spaces. Cardinals and neons don't go for the bigger shrimp but the small babies without cover will get eaten. I have seen my cardinals rip apart a dying cherry now and then in my tank and my tank has gotten lot more cover since i put them in there and still ill see the occasional cherry nomnom. i had 7 pregnant cherries and though i am pretty sure they spawned i only see 10-15 survivors in my tank so any time you keep shrimp with fish your fish will thank you for nice nomnoms. In terms of breed problems too if your shrimp feel threatened and if they are berried they might drop the eggs.


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## pyrrolin (Jan 11, 2012)

neons need a separate tank for breeding, I am in the process of trying to breed them myself with no luck yet


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## Kimchi24 (Mar 22, 2013)

xriddler said:


> I don't really understand the question. Breeding problem for the shrimp or the fish?
> 
> Second how big is your tank? If you are planning to breed your tetras you should seriously consider doing it separate from your shrimps as the bio load may fluctuate with the increase in food you provide the fish to prep them for spawning.
> 
> If you are talking about if your shrimp/lets will survive then depends on the amount of hiding spaces. Cardinals and neons don't go for the bigger shrimp but the small babies without cover will get eaten. I have seen my cardinals rip apart a dying cherry now and then in my tank and my tank has gotten lot more cover since i put them in there and still ill see the occasional cherry nomnom. i had 7 pregnant cherries and though i am pretty sure they spawned i only see 10-15 survivors in my tank so any time you keep shrimp with fish your fish will thank you for nice nomnoms. In terms of breed problems too if your shrimp feel threatened and if they are berried they might drop the eggs.


I want to breed the shrimp. This tank will be covered well with plants and plenty of java moss. They will be in a 33 gallon tank. I may take out several of the fish, plop them in a free 10 gallon and try to breed them


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## xriddler (Feb 16, 2012)

no matter how much cover you have with fish you are going to lose shrimp. like me i lost a lot  i dropped in 50 and well though see young shrimp there isnt many and my original fifty i cant even count 20 anymore and i do have moderate plant, driftwood and rock coverage.


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## TorontoBoy (Mar 14, 2013)

xriddler said:


> The truth with Big als fishes that go on sale is that they never get quarantined long enough in the store. big als basically gets them a fwe days before their sales so they don't acclimatize well and then we go and swoop them up from the store which stresses them out some more. Before buying neon and cardinals its always good to talk to the store owners/employees to see how long they have been kept in the tank imho.


I hit the last BA Scarborough sale for neon tetras, 3 for $2. I was surprised that they still had stock mid-week, so I talked to the staff, who said they just arrived the day before, with no quarantine before being sold. Like the newby I am I bought, and sure enough, most died, were replaced, a couple of times, but two survived. I'm unsure if they were the originals, the replacements or the replacements for the replacements. Suffice it to say that BA sale fish are not good value if they quickly die.

Next time I buy neons or cardinals I will try Aquapets or the other Chinese LFS. No sale and no guarantees, but they must have better stock than BA, or they would not remain in business. Or so I think, now.


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

It's sad but true, you tend to get what you pay for. Not all BAs sale fish are going to die if you buy them, but it's true that they often don't get much in the way of recovery time before being sold. 

It's not really quarantine. For a true Quarantine they'd have to keep them for a few weeks before selling them, which would raise the price substantially and cut down on the numbers of fish they had for sale. 

In many cases I think they are given only a couple or maybe 3 days if they're lucky, to recover from shipping before being sold. That's based on seeing a new tankful of fish with a 'newly arrived, not yet for sale' sign on it, and seeing the same tank being sold within a couple of days, sometimes only one day.

To be fair, I think that sometimes this might be because shipments don't arrive exactly when they were expected to, so they get caught between having to honour their ads and trying to let the fish recover. But even so, a couple of days is just not long enough.. though certainly most very weak or sick fish will die in that time. 

I just got a few relatively uncommon danios from BAs Miss. It's a tiny species, Tinwini, aka Gold Ring Danios. Very pretty markings on the body, but they resemble one form of the Kyathit Danio. The day I first saw them, there were quite a few of them and no dead ones. But I wanted to be sure of the ID.. because they resemble Kyathit Danios and they might have been mislabeled. So I waited to do a bit of research and went back next day. By the, there were not many left and there were four dead ones. Normally I would not have bought them with four dead fish in the tank. But then, they're hard to find, so I took a chance. At least they're still having that 25% off sale.

Because they're not easy to find and there were two healthy looking females, I figured, ok, I"ll chance it, and I hope they make it.. they're fairly new in the hobby, and I'm really hoping I am able to get some fry from at least one of the females. But if they don't make it, well, it won't be like I didn't know when I got them that there might be problems.


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## BillD (Jun 5, 2006)

I remember buying neons at Pet Fair in Hamilton, @15 for $1. They didn't count them, just scooped out a net full, sometimes you got 25.


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