Glowlight Tetra Care Guide: Tank Mates, Size, and Plant Choices

Small, affordable, and sociable…What’s not to like about the glowlight tetra? These tetras are a good choice for beginning aquarists. They need a little more space to roam around in than solitary small fish. But they repay your efforts with engaging social behaviors.

What is the Glowlight Tetra?

Glowlight tetra fish are South American members of the family Characidae. Characins include dozens of different types of tetras. Most of these are small to medium sized schooling fish. Their colors are diverse, ranging from ultra bright to subdued and somber. 

Glowlight tetras might be considered rather boring if not for their radiant pink stripe and white tipped fins. Several tetra species have an iridescent stripe, including black neon tetras and cardinal tetra fish.

Tetras use their stripes to coordinate the movements of the entire school in dark, tannin-rich water. Tetra schools number in the thousands. Yet the individual fish could get lost with ease when the school is moving fast. The reflective stripe helps the fish see each other, keeping everyone together.

Glolite tetras should not be confused with glofish tetras. Glo Tetra fish are genetically modified black skirt tetras (Gymnocorymbus ternetzi), and not close relatives of the glowlight tetra. 

Their glow comes from jellyfish DNA. While glowlight tetras are unenhanced by chemicals or mutations.

• Common Names: Glowlight Tetra, Glow Neon Tetra, Fire Neon Tetra, Glolite Tetra
• Scientific Name: Hemigrammus erythrozonus
• Origin: Essequibo River, Guyana
• Length: 1½ inches
• Tank Size: 20 gallons
• Temperament: Peaceful; Schooling
• Ease of Care: Easy

Glowlight Tetra Fish Care

Glowlight tetra fish need excellent water quality and will die if ammonia levels rise at all. Otherwise, they are undemanding and peaceful aquarium inhabitants that are great for community tanks with smaller fish.

Glofish Tetra Tank Size

A glowlight tetra fish tank needs to be more spacious than the 5 to 10 gallon setups favored by beginners. But not so big as to be expensive or hard to manage. A 20 gallon long or high tank is enough for these fast-moving tetras.

Glowlight tetras stay small but need to live in groups of 6 or more individuals. Any less and they will stress, turning pale in color and hiding all of the time. 

If you have space, buying even more will help them feel comfortable. Schools of 10 or more fish move in a synchronized, mesmerizing way.

Plants and Decorations

Glowlight tetra fish are one of the best planted tank inhabitants you could choose. They are carnivores so they won’t eat your plants. Their reddish pink color contrasts well with the greens of plants. And they enjoy the cover that plants create, darting in and around lush growth.

Tetra fish also enjoy the same water conditions as most aquarium plants. I’d choose a mixture of floating and rooted plants for a glowlight tetra tank. Some jungle vallisneria to fill in the background. Midground plants like Amazon swords, guppy grass, and moneywort. And easy to grow foreground plants like dwarf sagittaria or hairgrass.

Don’t use large numbers of rocks in a glowlight tetra tank unless you’re sure of the type. Most sedimentary and metamorphic rocks are poor choices. They contain calcium carbonate and other minerals that affect your water chemistry. Seiryu stone is an exception, however.

Both sand and gravel work well as a substrate. Tetra fish don’t spend much time along the bottom of the tank. Choose whichever substrate works well with your plant or tank mate choices.

Water Conditions for Glowlight Tetras

The most challenging aspect to glowlight tetra fish care is maintaining good water quality. These fish don’t do well with even low levels of ammonia or nitrite. If levels start to rise, they will be the first fish to show stress or die.

Ammonia and nitrite levels need to be at 0 parts per million. Nitrate is well tolerated by all aquarium fish. But levels should be lower for tetras; 10 to 20 ppm is best. If you have live plants, we don’t want to eliminate it since nitrate is fertilizer for them.

Don’t add aquarium salt as a general tonic for tanks with glowlight tetras. They are sensitive to salt and moderate concentrations will stress or kill them. It can be used to treat diseases but dips are better than long-term exposure.

Glowlight tetras are prone to aquarium fish ich. Prevention is the best strategy, making sure any new fish are ich-free. And never dump pet store water into your tank, which is loaded with infectious agents.

The pH should be acidic to neutral in chemistry (pH 5.5-7.0). Glowlight tetras are good additions to a blackwater tank; the kind of environment they are found in the wild. 

They will tolerate alkaline conditions (ph 7.0+) but their appetite, color, and disease resistance all suffer. Nor will they spawn for you.

Water temperatures of 73-83℉ are ideal for glowlight tetras. Any cooler and they are more likely to catch ich and other diseases.

Glofish Tetra Tank Mates

As small and peaceful as they are, there is a large list of compatible fish to live alongside glowlight tetras. The majority of fish at your local pet store will work. Avoid large, predatory, or aggressive fish. 

Here are some of the best glofish tetra tank mates in the hobby:

• Guppy fish
• Platy fish
• Dwarf Gouramis
• Other Types of Tetras
• Danios
• Smaller Barbs
• Killifish
• Hatchetfish
• Dwarf Otocinclus

Glowlight tetras are also good tank mates for freshwater shrimp. Even baby shrimp are safe from them. Aquarium snails will also graze in peace.

What Do Glow Neon Tetras Eat?

As carnivorous fish, glowlight tetras need a high protein, animal-based diet. They are best thought of as micro predators. Feeding on small invertebrates, fish fry, zooplankton, and anything else tinier than they are.

In captivity, glowlight tetras adjust well to a diet of  flakes and pellets. Pellet foods should be small enough for them to eat since they have such small mouths. Feed your glowlight rasbora fish two to three times per day.

Supplement their prepared food base with a mixture of live and frozen offerings. Glowlight tetras will eat most of the invertebrate based foods you’ll find at your local pet store. 

Including brine shrimp, daphnia, bloodworms, and tubifex worms (feed tubifex sparingly since they are high in fat). These foods also encourage them to produce eggs and sperm for breeding.

Glow Tetra Fish Breeding

Glowlight tetras are easy to keep but challenging to spawn. Your water quality needs to be excellent. Plenty of live food and a tank with lush plant life also encourages glowlight tetras to breed.

Glowlight Tetra Male vs Female

Sexing tetra fish is not easy. Glowlight tetras are not sexually dimorphic. So it’s difficult to tell males from females by looking at them. The females are plumper and longer, but with such small fish it’s not a huge difference. Both sexes have the same colors as well.

When ready to spawn the females will swell up with eggs, making it obvious. Male glolight tetras do have some behavioral differences. They are more territorial and will spend more time fighting with each other. While females move between territories and school in peace.

Spawning Glolight Tetras

Once you have food, water conditions, plants, and temperature right, the fish will do the rest. Glowlight tetras are egg scatterers and provide no parental care for their eggs or fry. They pair off when light levels are low, scattering eggs into thick plant growth.

The sticky eggs are a pale yellow or orange color and hard to see since they are so small. But tetra fish will eat their eggs or fry after spawning. So you will need to notice when the female has “deflated” and collect any plants that have eggs attached.

Tetra fish fry are tiny; too small to eat brine shrimp nauplii. They won’t eat for 48-72 hours after hatching anyway; they first absorb nutrients from their attached yolk sack. 

Their first week of life, they need to be fed cultured infusoria. A soup of live microorganisms that is simple to grow. After their first few days, they will then be large enough to eat live baby brine shrimp.

Conclusion

Glowlight tetra fish are social, peaceful fish that fit into any community of small fish. They don’t nip fins or nibble on live plants. Plus their colors and coordinated movements are fascinating to watch.

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