# Cardinal tetra vs. Neon tetra, which do you prefer



## MarkM (Sep 16, 2012)

I'll watch for response as I am thinking of putting a school of one or the other in a 120. The Neons want a lower temp which would be difficult to provide as I do not want to get a chiller. Both have lots of discussion about health viability.


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## jjt (Jan 5, 2013)

Cardinals for the looks!! Sharper color

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## aquarium hippy (Feb 7, 2013)

I have had better luck with cardinals and they look better IMO.


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## jbrady33 (Jun 7, 2012)

The stripes on a cardinal are longer (the red runs the whole length of their body) and they tend to be a little bigger.

I personally had trouble with cards, bought 15 and all died over a month but one (still don't know what i did). Bought a bunch of neons on sale, 6 months later i have my little school of neons with one card hanging out with them


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## Sierra255 (Sep 13, 2007)

I tend to prefer neons over cardinals, but I like the look of both. I've had similar success with the health of both. The biggest thing that I've done to help survival has been slow acclimation into my aquariums. If you can do the drip method, you give your fish the best chance of survival from what I've seen. I still lose a few, but it's not near the 50%+ that usually happens. They also have to look good when I buy them. Sickly looking fish are usually just about dead anyway.


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## JustJen (Jun 20, 2011)

I much prefer the look of cardinals, but they can't survive in my hard alkaline water for any real length of time (6-9 months is the longest I've kept one alive in my tank - and he was from a batch of 12 that slowly died off in the months prior). For that reason, I'm a neon fan now.


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## meppitech (Apr 29, 2011)

Cardinals. The females are stunning. They get bigger than neons and the color is better imo.


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## fishkeeper01 (Oct 2, 2012)

Which fish sends to bed more likely to die? What should I look out for/consider when deciding on which to get?


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## Lornek8 (Jul 3, 2013)

Neons have a poor reputation health wise. It is in large part to the mass-farming that is done with them. For a long time cardinals were still wild-caught or just better bred and proved hardier overall. I'm not sure if its necessarily still true or not. I just purchased a group of cardinals and when shopping for them, all the cardinals I saw were generally better looking (healthy) overall than the neons.


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## PK1 (Oct 30, 2005)

Cardinals for the look of them, as long as you can find a healthy batch in the store. Some of the ones I've recently seen in LFS near my house have been really sorry looking.

As far as ease of keeping them, some years ago I had a school of over 60 that I kept for a few years. While nearly impossible to count the exact number once in the tank (I tried shouting "freeze", but they just wouldn't listen...), I did not notice any decline in numbers over time.

What was interesting is that I'd notice them schooling more at night than during the day; during the day they were all over the place. Not sure if neons have a different behavior in this regard.


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## Kitsune_Gem (Apr 10, 2012)

If I had a choice, I dont between crappy stock and over priced fish, I'd go with Cardinal tetras. To me they look amazing in larger schools, don't get me wrong, I love my little neons, but it's just not the same.


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## manlyfan76 (Jun 20, 2013)

My tank is medium to low hardness and ph 7.0 and the Cardinals look great and can live for years.


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## Jaguar (Oct 13, 2011)

Cardinals. More colorful, and a bit bigger.


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## marcelojc (Aug 31, 2013)

Cardinal. always wanted this fish since childhood


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## Centromochlus (May 19, 2008)

Cardinals for sure... much more vibrantly colored than neons.


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## Cannonbolt (Sep 13, 2007)

I went with Cards because of the fact that their colors span their whole length. I haven't had any of the health issues that they are known for. In an isolated incident, I lost 1 because it was so greedy at feeding time that one day it literally burst its gut. Otherwise, the only time I've ever lost Cards was with an outbreak of Ich that happened while I was out of town one weekend (the Ich came in on new Cards coincidentally). Just by the numbers, they did well, I ended up losing more CPDs than Cards. 
Also, I do not use drip acclimatization with my Cards or any of my other fish. I float the bag for about 15 min for temps to equalize then they get dumped in. I have yet to lose a Card (or any other fish) during the acclimatization phase.


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## patsplat (Jul 5, 2013)

meppitech said:


> Cardinals. The females are stunning. They get bigger than neons and the color is better imo.


ive seen a neon get three inches, he was really overfed though. atleast he wouldent get attacked by the cichlids anymore, he was bigger than them XD


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