Neon Tetra

Perhaps the most popular tropical aquarium fish in the world, Neons have been in our aquaria for nearly a century and were rare and expensive gems in the days when global travel to countries like Peru was no small undertaking. Their first importation involves names which would go on to be more familiar as honorary binomials "“ Rabaut, Cochu, Innes and Myers are all men whose names can be seen today as scientific epithets of fishes that you can find elsewhere in the Databank. Their journey to the wider world even involves the ill-fated Hindenburg airship transporting the first of them to Chicago. Nowadays, this fish is far cheaper (having dropped from around £425 each in 1935 "to around £21,000 today) but remains one of the most attractive aquarium fish ever discovered.

In their wild Amazonian home waters, Neons are mostly found in blackwater habitats that generally contain large quantities of dead leaves and waterlogged wood, their bright colours serving to make them visible to one another in water that can be the colour of black tea. Light levels are subdued, and strongly acidic water makes life difficult for bacteria and parasites, which impacts the development of this fish's eggs, even after generations of captive breeding.

Thanks to their familiarity, not many people keep Neons in biotope aquaria but millions of them thrive in community tanks filled with local tap water. As the classic community fish, these tetras are compatible with most species that won't regard them as a snack. Happy Neons will spread through the lower regions of the aquarium, with males establishing discreet territories in a similar way to many tetras. This behaviour often goes unnoticed as the females are more shoaling either way these are fish that should be kept in large groups and you've only got to look at the spectacle of a couple of hundred in a stock tank to see that in action.