Not every fish enthusiast is keen to breed tetra fish. Not because they are hard to breed but it is a huge responsibility. The tetra fish are the most common in the home aquarium. The adaptive nature, their beautiful colorations, and the minimum requirements for their care are some reasons why people love to house tetra fish. Besides, there are ways to make tetra fry grow quickly.
When you want to breed the tetras, with few requirements and dedication, it becomes very easy. The main factor that you should consider is the diet of tetra fish, both adult tetras, and the fry tetras. Once you breed, the tetra fry should have proper care and diet to grow quickly.
Any fish, whether tetras or not, need to be healthy in your tank environment. While this is a normal process, several procedures you can do to solidify the correct diet, fitness, and the development of the tetras. Let us see a few dietary necessities for adult and fry tetra fish in this article.
Advantage of Tetra Fry Growing Quickly
You see, it is a universal law that tiny things are harder to care for. The same goes for aquarium species. When you are taking care of tetras, you may feel that the adult tetras are easier to care for. This is because the adult tetras are stable and their immune system to withstand few fluctuations is higher.
This might not be the case when the tetras are young fry. The fry tetras are frail. Hence, they should have adequate food, good water quality, proper lightings, and a secure environment.
Once the tetras grow into the adult form, it will take the edge off you. You will feel more relaxed allowing perform other activities like moving them into the adult tank. When the tetra fry develops quickly, you also move onto the next breeding process.
Tetra Fish Diet for Adult and Fry
As I have mentioned earlier, the diet of tetra fish both adult and fry directly relates to their immunity. A balanced diet of food is essential in your tank to prevent any diseases, deficiency, or weakness. You should know what to feed your tetra fish, both fry and adult, and how much to feed. Tetra fish are bright-colored fish.
You can see that their coloration when they are thriving in the environment you have created. However, when the tetras feel inconvenience like water quality degrading, inadequate diet, unsafe environment, lack of space, etc. you can see their colors fading.
Therefore, your tetra fish will require all the balanced diets just like us. Carbs, proteins, fats, nutrients, etc. all help the tetras to live a long healthy life in the aquarium. This is the reason most tetra keepers feed them fiber-rich foods. They also need vitamins like phosphorus to grow their cells, fats as energy storage, bone strength calcium, and energy carbohydrates.
How To Make Tetra Fry Grow Quickly?
When you are working with aquarium species, you want them to grow up fast and live. The tinier the fish, the more complication can arise. The fish can get sick, catch diseases, or even die when they are small. You can help the tetra fry grow quickly so that they can become strong on their own. Feeding your tetra with a good diet is one way to ensure their growth. Here are a few ways in which you can provide your tetra fish fry healthy and regulated diet.
Do Not Overfeed
When the tetra is fry, you should be constantly feeding them. This does not mean that you should overfeed them. You cannot feed them a week’s diet on a single day and expect them to be healthy. The important thing is you regulate the balance in their diet.
You should be the one to analyze how much your tetra fry can eat. Try feeding them a certain amount once and see if the fry cleans the entire food residue from the water. If there is no leftover, you can feed them that amount regularly. Else, you can decrease the food volume.
Automatic Fish Feeders
This is a very efficient tool to install in your tank. Especially, if you are a busy person and you are not looking after your fry tank constantly. It will be easier for you to use a device that can be configured to feed your fish automatically with personalized food volumes for customizable time of the day.
You can also self-feed the tetra fry but when you do, it will not be the same amount at the same time always. Sometimes, you might feed them slightly less, and sometimes you might be late or early. When you use automatic fish feeders, every time your tetra fry will get a constant amount and at the same time. This will form some sort of habit on your fry and their body act according to it.
Provide Adequate Space
The healthy growth of tetra fish requires adequate space. You will need to transfer the tetra fry to a larger tank at some stage. One hundred fries can be raised in a 10-gallon tank easily, as long as there is a lot of water change to keep the water new. I have given some idea about how many neon tetras to keep per gallon of water here.
If it were difficult to change 40 to 50% every day, you would need a bigger tank to increase the number of fryers.
The other alternative is you do not raise hundreds of fry. Move 20 to 30 fry to develop out of the spawning tank. The other fry can be fed to the group tank in the spawning tank. Most fried fish are food for bigger fish in nature. It can sound cruel, but it is true.
The few fish that are transferred to a cultivated tank will live there until they are large enough to enter the group tank with their parents or give it to other aquariums.
Use Breeding Tank
Sometimes other species as well as the parent tetras also eat the babies. Therefore, you should breed the tetra fry in a separate breeding tank. The hardness level of the water should be under 30 ppm and the pH level around 6.7. Also, keep in mind a proper filtration system in the fry tank. You can use sponge filters in the tetra fry tank.
Water Changes
When the water is used too much, it will get dirty. You should always use new water as much as you can in your tetra fry tank. The fry grows very rapidly with a daily change of 30 percent combined with multiple feedings every day.
The Tetra Fry Breeding Tank
The tetra breeding should be in a separate breeding tank. The tetras lay many eggs from 40 to 100 eggs at a time. Therefore, I recommend you to think about the possibility that most of your tetra fry will survive. For this, you will require at least a 10-gallon to 15-gallon tank for the new babies to grow. Regardless, you will need to move the tetras fry when they develop.
Here is an article on how to know a neon tetra is going to lay eggs.
Following is the prerequisite for your tetra fry tank:
- 10 to 15 Gallon capacity tank
- Filtration System: Sponge Filter mostly preferable
- Hardness: under 30ppm
- pH between 6.0 to 6.7
- The temperature around 78 degrees Fahrenheit
- Thick plants or gravel for eggs to fall
- Dark Lighting for the eggs. You can also cover the tank with a towel.
Diet for Adult Tetra Fish
There are various fish foods in the market. Especially, for fish like tetras who are omnivorous, you will have plenty of options. You can feed the adult tetra fish following diet:
- Prepared Foods: Flakes, Pellets, Wafers
- Frozen/Dried Foods: Bloodworms, Mosquito Larvae
- Live Foods: Brine Shrimp, Micro worms, Fruit Flies, Mosquito Larvae, Daphnia, Insects
- Tetra Color Bits
Diet for Fry Tetra Fish
The moto of diet for the fry tetra fish is that you should be feeding them small quantities but constantly. They have a decent chance of survival when they have enough food to expand to a degree that allows the tetra fry to consume larger types of food.
Here is the following diet option you can feed the tetra fry:
- Infusoria
- Brine Shrimp
- Micro Worms
- Algae Green Water
- Lettuce
- Sprouts
- Fish Fillets
- Boiled Peas
- Egg Yolks
Do Adult Tetra Fish Eat Meat?
You should feed them some protein and meat every day in addition to simple tetra fish foods. The majority of tetras are omnivores, though others are strict carnivores, like many types of piranhas. Feeding tetra meat also imitates the wild’s natural environment, allowing them to survive.
Some good sources of meat products for your tetras are here:
Make sure all these food items rotate alternatively. Variety is also a representation of its natural environment. The tetra will live these diets.
Do Fry Tetra Fish Eat Meat?
The meaty diets are one of the recommended tetra fry diets because they need meat for growth. Nevertheless, they are too tiny during the first week of their life to accommodate any of the above meat treatments. Tetra fry will eat flake food, but it will not give them the nutrition that needs for growth.
Your fry is large enough in the second week to accommodate bigger foods than brine shrimps, micro-worms, or fry powders. Besides, avoid the living foods that could prey on the small fry. For instance, leeches, dragonfly larvae, hydras, etc.
Note: Check out our individual article on Tetra Fish Diet, Tetra Fry Care, and How to Feed Tetra Fish Fry as well to know the details about the diet of tetra fish.
When Can You Move Tetra Fry To Adult Tank?
With a proper environment to boost the tetra fry immunity, there is no doubt that they can develop quickly. Soon, your breeding tank will not be enough for the evolving tetra fry. You will need to move the tetra fry into the adult tank with other tank mates.
Shift the fry tetra into a larger tank when they can consume freshly hatched shrimp and micro worms. Once the fry can do so, you will know that they can adjust to the adult tank along with other species.
Conclusion
If you get the hang of it, maintaining a tetra fish diet for both adults and fry is relatively easy. Just as we eat a balanced diet, with proteins, carbs, fat, nutrients, etc. your tetra will also need similar ingredients. Not to ignore the care and quality environment you should provide the tetras to ensure their proper improvement in the fish’s growth and immunity.
Another notable point is that the more quality diet you provide your tetra fish adult or fry the more they grow quickly and become healthy. All you need to consider is a few requirements such as quality water, water conditions, water changes, diet, etc.
