Hi..

No. In north america "neon" means Hypessobrycon innesi and
Cardinal refers to Paracheirodon axelrodi.

Thanks, should have asked Google in advance..

"White cloud mountain minnow" or just "white cloud" here.

This is exactely where they come from or what "albonubes"
means..

Depends on the bacteria. Scheel reported in _ROTOW_ that
Mycobacteria does not do at all well in hard water but he
suffered great losses from this pathogen when he kept wild
caught fishes frim soft water in soft water tanks.

Well, only a minority of wild caught fishes will reach us
fish keepers and these fishes are often apathetic and ill.
Means their immune system is weak, too..

Some fish species are used to change from softer to harder
water and back. Others seem to spend their complete
life in soft or soft _and_ acid water..

The softer the water the more energy do fishes need to
transport diffusing water back to outside. This is a
kidneys job and the kidneys are always in danger to loose
important ions. And the management of the ion pumps that
hold these ions back consume a lot of energy..

And this is why weak and apathetic soft water wild caught
fishes often aren't able to manage both: to fight the
pathogens back and to keep their ion pumps effectively
running..

But after their recovery they can return to soft water, step
by step adapted over a timeframe of 3-4 weeks..

BTW: We are used to keep soft water fishes in soft water and
they feel well. Initiated by soft water their kidneys are
steadily "rinsed" and in this way and in the long term they
aren't in danger to get a renal insufficiency..

What he
would do was always keep them in hard water then only
breed them in soft water.

Hmm.., see above-mentioned..

He also found that in hard water the gonads would not
develop but found that peat extract (or any source of
gonaditropine, and you may not want to ask) would cause
the sex organs to mature; into soft water, breed, then
quick back to hard water..

--
cu
Marco