Breeding Zebra Danios Glofish + Tetras in clay pots

Hi there.

I’m a newbie in this.

I keep my fish in huge clay pots —there to get rid of the mosquito larvae— but now I’ve got into it and want to breed them.

Guppies and Swordfish aren’t a problem at all but I cannot manage with Danios and Tetras. I know these two do it through eggs so I keep them together.

First I got the Danios —28 of them—and after breeding Guppies and Swordfish without looking for it I was wondering why the Danios didn’t do the same. It was almost impossible not to have a mixture of male and female with 28 of them but just in case I went to the pet shop again and bought ten more females. Still nothing.

I read a bit about it and set up a ground in the pot that I think despite of being inexpensive should be attractive for them. Still nothing four months down the line —please find pic of it attached.

Please take into account that I feed my fish very little dry food —they wouldn’t eat larvae if they’re full and more so at the beginning. It took four weeks for them to manage a glass clear water in the pots and then I started feeding them more often. Lately I’m feeding them at least once daily to see if they stop eating their eggs/fry.

I then saw the Tetras and bought ten pieces but they don’t breed either.

Any any advice welcome.

lighthouse said:

Guppies and Swordfish aren’t a problem at all but I cannot manage with Danios and Tetras. I know these two do it through eggs so I keep them together.

Click to expand...

LOL

If you want to breed danios or tetras, you need to separate males and females for 5-7 days before putting them together in a breeding tank or pond. Danios like a cooling off period too and normally breed in spring when the weather starts to warm up. That is going to be difficult considering where you are located in the tropics. However, separating the sexes for 5 days and then putting them together should produce something.

The breeding tanks are usually about 2 foot long x 12 inches wide x 12 inches high. They have a thin layer of gravel or a couple of layers of glass marbles on the bottom. The eggs can drop down between the marbles and the adult fish can't get to them. However, I always used gravel and got lots of fry. You put a clump of Java Moss over part of the tank and add the fish. Have an airstone or air operated sponge filter in the tank too. The following day or sometimes that day, the male will chase the female into the plants and they release their gametes (eggs & sperm). They continue doing this until the female has no more eggs and then they stop breeding. The adults should be removed at this time. The female will look quite slim after she has shed her eggs.

In a pond you have lots of plants and introduce 1 or 2 pairs of fish and leave them there. They will breed when ready and the fry (baby fish) will hide among the plants. Some will survive and some will be eaten.

Your pots don't have anywhere near enough plants for baby fish to hide in so if the fish are breeding, the eggs and babies are probably being eaten by the fish. You also have too many fish in the pots for breeding purposes. Fish that aren't breeding at that time, will race in and eat any eggs. By having fewer pairs in each container (1 or 2 pairs), the adult fish will be interested in breeding but will be much less inclined to eat the eggs or fry, because they are busy breeding.

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You need to add a variety of food to their diet, not just leave them on mozzie larvae. Fish that are well fed with a variety of food will produce healthier gametes and be more willing to breed. And whilst mozzie larvae are a great food to bring fish into breeding condition, they should be used in conjunction with other foods.

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When we were breeding rainbowfish in ponds, we had 10 foot diameter ponds that were about 30 inches deep. We had a heap of live plants in the pond. We added plant fertiliser and left the ponds to go green and soupy. The green was from single celled algae, which the baby fish eat. We added 2 or 3 pairs of adult rainbowfish to each pond and left them there for a month. Then we moved the adults out and raised several thousand baby fish in each pond.

The adult rainbowfish grew to about 4 inches and had heaps of room to breed. They didn't eat their young but the bigger fry do eat the smaller fry. The same thing happens with all fish. So you remove the adults after you start to see babies under the surface and let the babies grow up in the pond. Alternatively, you scoop the babies out as they appear and move the baby fish into a rearing pond that doesn't have any adult fish in.

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You could try other fish in those pots. A pair of dwarf cichlids would breed readily in each pot. If you want to breed lots of young, you would just have the pr by themselves. If you didn't mind most of the young being eaten, you could leave some danios in with them. Personally I prefer to keep breeding tanks/ ponds as single species tanks and only have the breeding fish in there.

Colin_T said:

LOL

If you want to breed danios or tetras, you need to separate males and females for 5-7 days before putting them together in a breeding tank or pond. Danios like a cooling off period too and normally breed in spring when the weather starts to warm up. That is going to be difficult considering where you are located in the tropics. However, separating the sexes for 5 days and then putting them together should produce something.

The breeding tanks are usually about 2 foot long x 12 inches wide x 12 inches high. They have a thin layer of gravel or a couple of layers of glass marbles on the bottom. The eggs can drop down between the marbles and the adult fish can't get to them. However, I always used gravel and got lots of fry. You put a clump of Java Moss over part of the tank and add the fish. Have an airstone or air operated sponge filter in the tank too. The following day or sometimes that day, the male will chase the female into the plants and they release their gametes (eggs & sperm). They continue doing this until the female has no more eggs and then they stop breeding. The adults should be removed at this time. The female will look quite slim after she has shed her eggs.

In a pond you have lots of plants and introduce 1 or 2 pairs of fish and leave them there. They will breed when ready and the fry (baby fish) will hide among the plants. Some will survive and some will be eaten.

Your pots don't have anywhere near enough plants for baby fish to hide in so if the fish are breeding, the eggs and babies are probably being eaten by the fish. You also have too many fish in the pots for breeding purposes. Fish that aren't breeding at that time, will race in and eat any eggs. By having fewer pairs in each container (1 or 2 pairs), the adult fish will be interested in breeding but will be much less inclined to eat the eggs or fry, because they are busy breeding.

-----------------------
You need to add a variety of food to their diet, not just leave them on mozzie larvae. Fish that are well fed with a variety of food will produce healthier gametes and be more willing to breed. And whilst mozzie larvae are a great food to bring fish into breeding condition, they should be used in conjunction with other foods.

-----------------------
When we were breeding rainbowfish in ponds, we had 10 foot diameter ponds that were about 30 inches deep. We had a heap of live plants in the pond. We added plant fertiliser and left the ponds to go green and soupy. The green was from single celled algae, which the baby fish eat. We added 2 or 3 pairs of adult rainbowfish to each pond and left them there for a month. Then we moved the adults out and raised several thousand baby fish in each pond.

The adult rainbowfish grew to about 4 inches and had heaps of room to breed. They didn't eat their young but the bigger fry do eat the smaller fry. The same thing happens with all fish. So you remove the adults after you start to see babies under the surface and let the babies grow up in the pond. Alternatively, you scoop the babies out as they appear and move the baby fish into a rearing pond that doesn't have any adult fish in.

-----------------------
You could try other fish in those pots. A pair of dwarf cichlids would breed readily in each pot. If you want to breed lots of young, you would just have the pr by themselves. If you didn't mind most of the young being eaten, you could leave some danios in with them. Personally I prefer to keep breeding tanks/ ponds as single species tanks and only have the breeding fish in there.

Click to expand...

THANK YOU for this my friend —i had already lost hope anyone answering my post. i’ll ask further questions quoting your explanations in the same order.

can i separate them putting the male danios/tetras with my male guppies same pot and female danios with my female guppies and my swordfish same pot? is that considered cooling off period?

fawk, december is the coldest month here but i’ll still try.

i’ve attached a pic of my breeding pot, the one with the flip flop as a reference. my friend, i won’t go for IVF —they either breed the old way or they’ll get extinct. forget about filters and sponges and the sort. that pot is actually for giving birth purposes but i’ll buy another one if you say it’s ok. and i’ll put the gravel and plants ok.

i’ll also have children if i were allowed to eat them —perfect business really.

ok, i THINK i can tell by the danios male from female —please take into account that i can only see them from above— but what about the tetras? i’ve noticed some are darker than others —male/female?

forget about the special food. it’s like having a poodle in your flat/lap 24/7 or a shepherd dog taking care of your sheep. in this household every single animal has a mission and they either comply or end up... somewhere else. i complement their larvae diet with the most expensive pellets in the pet shop and that should be enough unless you tell me i can feed them also my leftovers.

i have a pot where i put all the fries. as soon as i see the bigger fries can swallow a big pellet i change them to the adults pot. is that a reliable signal? i hope so.

DO NOT PUT MORE IDEAS IN MY HEAD. every time i go to the pet shop i spend LOTS of bucks and they always tell me i can breed almost anything in my pots and so far it’s true which is amazing but first i really need to get these that i have now straight. why dwarf cichlids? they look cute but what’s the advantage?

my female guppies give birth and then many of them die —is that normal?

hope you answer all my new questions. looking forward to reading you.

lighthouse said:

Can I separate them putting the male danios/tetras with my male guppies same pot and female danios with my female guppies and my swordfish same pot? is that considered cooling off period?

Click to expand...

A cooling off period is where the fish are kept in cool water for several months to simulate winter. Danios normally live in cool water with a temperature between 16-26C and they breed in spring as the weather warms up and gets to around 22C+.

In the tropics you won't be able to give them a cooling off period so the best you can do is sperate them for a few days and then put them together.

re: separating the fish. You only separate them for 5-7 days. If females danios are kept on their own for too long, they can become egg bound and won't be able to breed after that. Males and females have to be kept together at all times except for a short period of about 5 days (no longer than 7 days) just before they are put together for breeding.

You don't have to move both sexes out of the pot, you can remove the males and leave the females where they are. The male danios can go in with any other fish that will not attack them or be hassled by them. Male guppies might get harassed by danios but you will have to monitor them and see how they get along. Normally they should be fine.

Male danios are smaller and slim, and females are fatter and longer.


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lighthouse said:

Forget about the special food. it’s like having a poodle in your flat/lap 24/7 or a shepherd dog taking care of your sheep. in this household every single animal has a mission and they either comply or end up... somewhere else. i complement their larvae diet with the most expensive pellets in the pet shop and that should be enough unless you tell me i can feed them also my leftovers.

Click to expand...

If you are having fish, shrimp/ prawns or squid for dinner and they don't have any herbs, spices, sauces or anything else on them, you can cut some of the fish, prawn or squid into little pieces and offer that to the fish a couple of times a week. Use a pair of scissors and cut the raw or cooked prawn (without the shell) into little bits and offer a few bits at a time. Do this until the fish are no longer racing in grabbing the food as soon as it hits the water, then stop feeding and remove any uneaten food so it doesn't rot and cause ammonia problems.

Monitor the ammonia levels or do big water changes when feeding meat based foods because they can cause water quality problems that kill the fish.

Adding a small pellet or flake food is also helpful and will definitely help supplement the mozzie larvae.

You might be able to find live Rotifers, Daphnia or Moina up there. These are a small freshwater crustacean that can be fed to fish. They live in ponds and feed on infusoria and green water. You can keep them in ponds and use a fine mesh net to scoop them out and put them in tanks and ponds for the fish to eat.

The following link has information about culturing food for baby fish, including reference to green water, daphnia, infusoria and rotifers.


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lighthouse said:

I have a pot where I put all the fries. as soon as I see the bigger fries can swallow a big pellet I change them to the adults pot. Is that a reliable signal? I hope so.

Click to expand...

I don't understand the question. Is it a reliable signal for what?


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lighthouse said:

DO NOT PUT MORE IDEAS IN MY HEAD. every time i go to the pet shop i spend LOTS of bucks and they always tell me i can breed almost anything in my pots and so far it’s true which is amazing but first i really need to get these that i have now straight. why dwarf cichlids? they look cute but what’s the advantage?

Click to expand...

Cichlids normally offer brood protection, basically they guard the eggs and baby fish for a month or so. This means most of the babies survive and get a chance to mature. The babies are also much bigger than danio or tetra fry and can eat a lot more types of food.

In a pond situation, the fish will breed continuously with no real input from you, and stop breeding when the pond has too many fish in. In your pots they would probably have a batch of fry and you would have to remove the babies when they are a month or two old and grow them up to full size or sell them as young fish.

Cichlids can have anywhere between 20 & 500+ eggs, but most dwarf cichlids like Apistogramma species only have 20-50 eggs at a time. This makes getting rid of them much easier because most shops will take 10 or 20 fish at a time. Most dwarf cichlids also sell for a few dollars so it can help to bring in a bit of extra cash simply for having a few fish in a pond.


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lighthouse said:

My female guppies give birth and then many of them die —is that normal?

Click to expand...

Unfortunately, due to inbreeding it is becoming more common. Fish that are too young often have complications during labour and die before or just after giving birth. Guppies and other livebearers should be allowed to mature before being bred and most deaths occur in young fish that are under 6 months of age. If you can let the fish get to 12 months before breeding, you don't normally lose any during labor.

Livebearers (guppies, mollies, swordtails and platies) should be kept in single sex tanks until they are at least 6 (preferably 12) months old. Unfortunately they are normally kept in mixed sex tanks at the shops and suppliers. This means the females are usually gravid (pregnant) when you get them. Subsequently most female guppies are only 3 or 4 months old when they have their first batch of babies.

Livebearers like guppies are also riddled with parasites like gill flukes and intestinal worms. Many have bacterial and protozoan infections when they come into the shops. This just adds to the problems and all new fish should be quarantined for a month and treated for gill flukes and worms while in quarantine.

Livebearers like guppies need water with a general hardness (GH) above 200ppm and a pH above 7.0. Mollies need a GH above 250ppm and a pH above 7.0. If the water is too soft and the pH below 7.0, they have problems.
Local bred guppies (fish born in your own tanks/ ponds) are usually much healthier and survive better than fish bought from shops, which have undergone numerous stress factors ranging from overcrowding, poor water quality, being bagged up, driven over bumpy roads, high temperatures, put into glass tanks, bagged up again, put on planes and flown around the world, then put into new tanks with different water, then bagged up again and sent to shops with different water, then bagged up again and taken home by the customer and put into another new tank with potentially different water. It's fish jet lag and stress on a massive scale and it's amazing any fish survive the trip from the suppliers to the home aquarium.

The following link has a more detailed explanation of the stress fish undergo when they leave the fish farm and travel around the world. It's pretty long but it might interest you.

This is all very long winded and I have not read the whole thread, Just cover the surface with live plants and let them go for it. The danios will spawn and the young will be on the surface with the parents underneath them. If you have plants with long roots the tetras will spawn and the fry will hang in the roots. These are small fry so check out my threads " First Food" and " White Cloud Fry "

Colin_T said:

A cooling off period is where the fish are kept in cool water for several months to simulate winter. Danios normally live in cool water with a temperature between 16-26C and they breed in spring as the weather warms up and gets to around 22C+.

In the tropics you won't be able to give them a cooling off period so the best you can do is sperate them for a few days and then put them together.

re: separating the fish. You only separate them for 5-7 days. If females danios are kept on their own for too long, they can become egg bound and won't be able to breed after that. Males and females have to be kept together at all times except for a short period of about 5 days (no longer than 7 days) just before they are put together for breeding.

You don't have to move both sexes out of the pot, you can remove the males and leave the females where they are. The male danios can go in with any other fish that will not attack them or be hassled by them. Male guppies might get harassed by danios but you will have to monitor them and see how they get along. Normally they should be fine.

Male danios are smaller and slim, and females are fatter and longer.


--------------------

If you are having fish, shrimp/ prawns or squid for dinner and they don't have any herbs, spices, sauces or anything else on them, you can cut some of the fish, prawn or squid into little pieces and offer that to the fish a couple of times a week. Use a pair of scissors and cut the raw or cooked prawn (without the shell) into little bits and offer a few bits at a time. Do this until the fish are no longer racing in grabbing the food as soon as it hits the water, then stop feeding and remove any uneaten food so it doesn't rot and cause ammonia problems.

Monitor the ammonia levels or do big water changes when feeding meat based foods because they can cause water quality problems that kill the fish.

Adding a small pellet or flake food is also helpful and will definitely help supplement the mozzie larvae.

You might be able to find live Rotifers, Daphnia or Moina up there. These are a small freshwater crustacean that can be fed to fish. They live in ponds and feed on infusoria and green water. You can keep them in ponds and use a fine mesh net to scoop them out and put them in tanks and ponds for the fish to eat.

The following link has information about culturing food for baby fish, including reference to green water, daphnia, infusoria and rotifers.

Back to Basics when Breeding Fish

STARTING OUT Make sure you have a pair, (1 male + 1 female). There is nothing worse than spending your hard-earned dollars buying a couple of fish to try and breed and ending up with a pair of fish of the same sex. Let's face it, to reproduce fish you need a male and a female. Two males won't do...

www.fishforums.net

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I don't understand the question. Is it a reliable signal for what?


--------------------

Cichlids normally offer brood protection, basically they guard the eggs and baby fish for a month or so. This means most of the babies survive and get a chance to mature. The babies are also much bigger than danio or tetra fry and can eat a lot more types of food.

In a pond situation, the fish will breed continuously with no real input from you, and stop breeding when the pond has too many fish in. In your pots they would probably have a batch of fry and you would have to remove the babies when they are a month or two old and grow them up to full size or sell them as young fish.

Cichlids can have anywhere between 20 & 500+ eggs, but most dwarf cichlids like Apistogramma species only have 20-50 eggs at a time. This makes getting rid of them much easier because most shops will take 10 or 20 fish at a time. Most dwarf cichlids also sell for a few dollars so it can help to bring in a bit of extra cash simply for having a few fish in a pond.


--------------------

Unfortunately, due to inbreeding it is becoming more common. Fish that are too young often have complications during labour and die before or just after giving birth. Guppies and other livebearers should be allowed to mature before being bred and most deaths occur in young fish that are under 6 months of age. If you can let the fish get to 12 months before breeding, you don't normally lose any during labor.

Livebearers (guppies, mollies, swordtails and platies) should be kept in single sex tanks until they are at least 6 (preferably 12) months old. Unfortunately they are normally kept in mixed sex tanks at the shops and suppliers. This means the females are usually gravid (pregnant) when you get them. Subsequently most female guppies are only 3 or 4 months old when they have their first batch of babies.

Livebearers like guppies are also riddled with parasites like gill flukes and intestinal worms. Many have bacterial and protozoan infections when they come into the shops. This just adds to the problems and all new fish should be quarantined for a month and treated for gill flukes and worms while in quarantine.

Livebearers like guppies need water with a general hardness (GH) above 200ppm and a pH above 7.0. Mollies need a GH above 250ppm and a pH above 7.0. If the water is too soft and the pH below 7.0, they have problems.
Local bred guppies (fish born in your own tanks/ ponds) are usually much healthier and survive better than fish bought from shops, which have undergone numerous stress factors ranging from overcrowding, poor water quality, being bagged up, driven over bumpy roads, high temperatures, put into glass tanks, bagged up again, put on planes and flown around the world, then put into new tanks with different water, then bagged up again and sent to shops with different water, then bagged up again and taken home by the customer and put into another new tank with potentially different water. It's fish jet lag and stress on a massive scale and it's amazing any fish survive the trip from the suppliers to the home aquarium.

The following link has a more detailed explanation of the stress fish undergo when they leave the fish farm and travel around the world. It's pretty long but it might interest you.

Fish Importing, from the farm to the home

If any of you have wondered how aquarium fish get to the local pet shop, the following will give you some insight as to what they have to go through to get from the fish farm where they are bred and raised, to the pet shop where you can buy them. The stress they go through is quite...

www.fishforums.net

Click to expand...

YOU.ARE.A.STAR

thank you for this!

my god, you made me literally cry when i read the way humans treat fish really —poor folk.

ok, i’ll try everything you explain so nicely.

do cichlids protect any kind of fries or only their own? i mean would the protect guppy fries?

DEFINITELY my babies are 1000% healthier than their parents i bought from the shop. so far only ONE of my fries has died —i can’t think of a reason really— and i have hundreds. all the guppies i bought from the shop are dead now, victims of my ignorance. yeah.

you say keep males and females apart until six months old BUT i cannot tell males from females until they reach a size. you know what i mean?

yeah, thinking of making a couple of bucks selling them but here i can’t ask for more than $1/two pieces.

THANK YOU again my friend!

itiwhetu said:

This is all very long winded and I have not read the whole thread, Just cover the surface with live plants and let them go for it. The danios will spawn and the young will be on the surface with the parents underneath them. If you have plants with long roots the tetras will spawn and the fry will hang in the roots. These are small fry so check out my threads " First Food" and " White Could Fry "

Click to expand...

i will.

THANK YOU!

lighthouse said:

Do cichlids protect any kind of fries or only their own? I mean would the protect guppy fries?

Click to expand...

As a general rule, cichlids only look after their own young. On rare occasions a female might gather up some live daphnia or fry from another fish and look after them too, but that is rare. Normally the adult cichlids will see other fish fry as a potential food source.

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lighthouse said:

You say keep males and females apart until six months old BUT I cannot tell males from females until they reach a size. you know what I mean?

Click to expand...

You don't have to separate the baby guppies until they are sexually mature. This can be when they are 2 months old or later depending on how well they are fed and how big their tank/ pond is. When you can see the young males developing their gonopodium (modified anal fin), that's when you separate them. Quite often the young males will have colour in their tails and body before the gonopodium is fully formed and you can separate them then.

Colin_T said:

As a general rule, cichlids only look after their own young. On rare occasions a female might gather up some live daphnia or fry from another fish and look after them too, but that is rare. Normally the adult cichlids will see other fish fry as a potential food source.

------------------

You don't have to separate the baby guppies until they are sexually mature. This can be when they are 2 months old or later depending on how well they are fed and how big their tank/ pond is. When you can see the young males developing their gonopodium (modified anal fin), that's when you separate them. Quite often the young males will have colour in their tails and body before the gonopodium is fully formed and you can separate them then.

Click to expand...

COOL.

ok, i think i’ve got it now —it’s “fry” even in plural and not “fries”.

better too late than never i guess.

lighthouse said:

COOL.
ok, i think i’ve got it now —it’s “fry” even in plural and not “fries”.
better too late than never i guess.

Click to expand...

Yeah, fry for fish and fries for chips from the burger shop

Colin_T said:

Yeah, fry for fish and fries for chips from the burger shop

Click to expand...

cool.

i take i can go to bed now that i’ve already learned something new today.