As a non breeder of fish, what is conditioning??? Aren’t all my fish in condition if I’m doing my job as a fish keeper???

[Magnum Man]

I feed as varied a diet as I can, and I get that there are certain weather / seasonal changes, that will induce spawning, but when reading up on species of fish that I have, it often mentions to condition your breeding fish… but isn’t it a goal to have your fish already in condition???

I’ve not really seen what was needed in these articles, to get the fish into condition… are there diets, that are not healthy for the fish to consume on a regular basis, that are needed prior to breeding???

I was watching my 3 lined glass cats this morning, cruising the bottom, in a quiet area in the tank… they are normally pretty much center of the tank current cruisers… so I bopped over to Seriously Fish, to look at how they breed, and the condition word was used there… these guys are pigs, and eat everything, there are no left over foods

 

[Back in the fold]

I think you have something there . You run across posts here where people talk about finding unexpected fry from all kinds of fish . A Blue Gourami builds a bubble nest and all of a sudden there’s a thousand fry , Glowlight tetra’s appear from nowhere and cichlids spawn for people who had no idea how they do it . Then there’s guplets and other live bearers that come on strong . If you are doing your job this will happen . I think conditioning fish might apply more to difficult species . You have to make things especially good so they are pushed to spawn . I’m talking off the top of my head and that’s just what I think but I think you asked a good question.

 

[GaryE]

When fish are in good condition, they often aren't full of eggs. They're healthy and hardy, but putting their energy there. With many species, if they are full of eggs, they'll regularly spawn where you can't raise fry.

So if I want numbers of babies from an egg layer, or any babies at all, I often remove the chosen breeders and separate the sexes for a week or so. I change their diet to something richer - often grindal or white worms, but any live or froze food that's a change of pace will do. Mosquito larvae are often really good. Daphnia isn't. Very few prepared pellets or flake do it - only black soldier fly based prepared foods have given me any success.

In the female tank, I see the bellies begin to round. I have my 'save the eggs and fry' tank set up, and I introduce the fish in the evening. In many cases, by mid morning, those bellies are no longer rounded. I remove the adults, and wait.

Sometimes, if there are other fish around, fish don't get to spawn. I put some Pristella maxillaris into a tank last night - an easy to breed egg laying tetra. The females were already looking rounded in the community tank. This morning, nothing has happened. So maybe they need a day to acclimate, and tomorrow at dawn, or this evening, things will happen. Maybe they won't happen at all.

My Aphyosemion zygaima killies will lay one or two eggs per female every day. This can make raising them awkward, as 10 day old fry will often eat newly hatched ones. It's too many rearing tanks. So I separate them and condition them, and they might give me a burst of 10-15 eggs on the same day (therefore the same incubation time).

With pair bonding Cichlids, you can't really do this. You don't want to disrupt the pair. But for shoalers, daily spawners and other egg layers, it can be effective.

So sometimes, it's a necessity if you want fry. Sometimes, conditioning fish gives you control over timing, so you can raise more fish in line with the space you have to raise them in.

 

[Colin_T]

Conditioning fish usually means feeding more often, doing more water changes and separating sexes for 5-7 days before breeding.

Feeding more often means feeding the fish 3-5 times a day with a variety of dry, frozen and live foods. You need to feed the adult fish like this for several weeks before they breed so the fish can develop good quality gametes. Ideally you want to condition feed the fish for a month before breeding. Mozzie larvae are the best live food for getting fish to spawn. Frozen prawn/ shrimp is the best frozen food for building up fish. However, you don't use meat based foods for vegetarian fishes.

More water changes helps to dilute the extra nutrients you are adding by feeding more. Water changes also simulate rainfall and that is when many freshwater fishes breed. Big water changes can stimulate fish into breeding and using slightly cooler water (5C) cooler than the tank water can often get fish breeding. A drop in barometric pressure, which occurs when it rains can get fish breeding too and some people will wait for a drop in air pressure then do a huge water change with cold water. The next day the fish have shed eggs everywhere.

Separating male and female fish for 5-7 days prior to breeding allows the fish to build up eggs and sperm and when they are put together you normally get higher numbers of eggs and more fertile eggs (fewer infertile eggs). With some fishes you can't keep them separate for more than 5 days or the females starting breeding with each other. This is common with rainbowfish. With other fishes you can keep them separate for 7 days but that is as long as I like them apart for. Having females unable to shed eggs can lead to egg binding in some species (mainly danios and barbs).

If fish are well fed and the tank gets plenty of water changes, they will usually breed without any help from us and you don't have to condition them if they are well looked after. However, you probably won't get many babies. If you are trying to get large numbers of fry on a regular basis, you need to condition them and put the breeding pairs in their own tanks/ containers for breeding.

 

[fishorama]

Conditioning to me means feeding high protein or live foods to get them all in a breeding/egg & sperm creating mood. As said, water changes help. But many fish breed without any or much extra help. Our fish want to breed unless something is seriously out of whack. It's up to you to provide a suitable tank & food if you want to raise fry. Breeding is a separate issue from that. I like to see my fish breed, that means they're healthy & happy. But I'm not so much into more than a few surviving accidental fry anymore. It can be a lot of work...

 

[GaryE]

The bottom line is always species by species. It's just logic that the fish most available from the farms are generally the easiest to breed. They like easy, and don't want to deal with labour expensive special set ups to mass produce fish. So when we get those fish home, we have to be more interested than directly skilled. Those fish are relatively easily coaxed to produce.

That doesn't mean breeding them isn't an accomplishment, because a fish farm is located jn the tropics with water that corresponds to the needs of the fish they specialize in. We have to be willing to learn and do a little work to accomplish what's easy for the pros.

The next level up fish don't have 3000 babies in one shot, or aren't easy to breed. They're a different game to figure out the rules of. They're the ones we have to condition pairs for, prepare very thought out tanks for, etc. To me, they're the fun ones.

As far as I can see, the Pristella maxillaris I set up to lay eggs did so yesterday during the day. The 2 females looked 'depleted'. I'll remove the adults today and be very disappointed if I don't see fry in a couple of days. I expect that will have worked. They're common, pet shop/fish farm species, and I really like them. But they are less of a challenge, in general.

The Neolebias trewevasae I set up a couple of days before also appeared to have spawned. They too were conditioned, in exactly the same way. I saw what appeared to be a small group of fry last evening. I couldn't be 100% sure as they moved quickly and I want to keep them dark. That's a whole other feeling. There, I expected failure and it's kind of intriguing that I might be raising another generation from these wild caught fish. If that has worked, I'll buy myself a coffee to celebrate.

I'm breeding both fish to raise small numbers, and have a larger shoal/group to enjoy in my tanks. If I get more than I want, I can find local people who would like to keep them. That's what fish clubs are for.

So with challenging fish, you go through extra steps. You condition them specifically for breeding. I can have very healthy fish fed flake and pellets. Many of them will not produce eggs on that diet. So special diets can be needed.

Special tanks too. Sometimes, special water conditions. I'm peat filtering one of my Cichlids and am down to 30 tds in their tank, from 65. Will it work? It entertains me to find out. I put my Bathyaethiops greeni (an African/Congo tetra) in a breeding tank with screening to protect falling eggs, and mops to catch aggs, but haven't seen fry. They could be there. A farm would want 1000, but I'd be happy with 10 or 15 for my purposes. Today, I'll carefully remove the mops and ground cover, to see if I can spot any movement. If not, I'll figure out what to adjust, and simply try again.

I like watching how little slivers of life turn into the beautiful fish we admire in each other's tanks. Watching how an angelfish, which starts shaped like any fish develops those weird adult fins, or how colours set in on a young killifish or tetra is fun for a nerd like me. That's at the heart of why I condition fish for breeding.