PaddyC's Peaceful Community

Yes, I also prefer Cardinals over Neons.    Especially with a blue "night" light - their iridescent strip is even more impressive.

Personally, I prefer them of the three.
Just considering their appearance, they have the least red but the most blue. They are called green neons, but the stripe only looks greeny blue when viewed from a certain angle. If you put them side by side with cardinals in particular the blue does look slightly greenish but on their own it does look blue most of the time.
Green neons are the smallest of the three, they grow maybe a tad over an inch.
Of the three Paracheirodons, green neons need softer water with a lower pH than the other two. Seriously Fish gives the range as pH 3.0 to 6.5 and hardness as 18 - 143 ppm (1 - 8 German deg). FishBase gives pH 5.5 to 6 and hardness up to 4 German deg (71 ppm)
Being small fish they 'get lost' in a big tank if there are only a few of them. A bigger shoal shows them off better, and the blue twinkles in and out as they turn from side on to head on.


I have had them a few times in pH 7.4 and hardness 5 German deg. They did die one by one over the years with a couple lasting over 5 years. Maybe they would have been better in a lower pH 

Your tank is looking good Paddy. 
The rams are great and I love the fact that they enjoy the camera and keeps popping into pictures. They really are lovely looking fish.

I spend a lot of time sitting in front of the tanks, which makes switching the lights off to go to bed at night quite a drawn out process as I keep getting distracted by the fishy antics. 

I've been deliberately spending more time sitting right in front of the tank rather than away over on the couch. It seems to be helping them to trust me.

I wholeheartedly recommend that - it does indeed get them used to your presence, and fiddling with a camera is the next stage which they soon get used to rather than darting to take cover - in fact, they start posing for the camera once they're used to it. Next, you'll find that you can't help but having little conversations with them too.

Another one for you @Fiona shot on my brand new phone 

Great picture of a beautiful fish. 

Aww cheers Donna  x

How are your glowlight tetras doing, @Paddyc? I recall Fiona mentioning hers were quite shy/timid, so was wondering if yours were as active as your other fish? How do they compare .v. your cardinals and neons in terms of how striking they are? [Making mental notes for future reference re stocking as saw some in the LFS at the weekend and thought they might complement my existing fish well in the (hopefully-far-off) future when numbers inevitably deplete.]

They're doing great, @fcmf , they've really grown up big! Well, the females have. The males are significantly smaller. They spend loads of time out in the open and generally feed in the middle third of the tank. I can always count them up easily enough so I'm glad i decided to get the 5 to add to the single one. I was almost getting rid of them and I'm so glad i didn't.

Compared to the neons/cardinals they aren't as striking nor do they tend to shoal up much... But don't let this put you off. They do shine against the darker backgrounds... Abbie loves them, they're her second favourite to the plec i think

Interesting and helpful; thanks.  Glad yours are doing well, Paddy.

[Fish do seem to have personality characteristics, so I can quite believe a group of them could become a moody shoal.]