Breeding/fry setup

[Beastije]

So I freed and cleaned up my 25liter as the setup in it was just boring. I put it on my windowsill and am thinking. What about a breeding tank/fry rearing tank. Would someone advise about a setup? Should I have it running with a sponge filter and some...java moss ? Or prepare before the breeding attempt itself?

I know to keep it bare bottom, but what about snails? My IKEA spare box is full of diatome brown algae that the snails help with, but they will also eat the eggs some day

Fish I have to try are all egg scatterers. Mango loaches. Norman lampeye. Possible pseudomugil luminatus. I don't know if I need to look into some sort of mesh for the bottom. I have a yarn mop

 

[TwoTankAmin]

There are different ways to a[[roach breeding and/or grow tanks. The key, omp, is that fish naturally want to breed, so our job is not to do things that would discourage or prevent that. Next, any set-up will be a function of the specific species involved. On some cases one can leave the fry in the breeding tanks because the parents do not eat them nor will the first spawn, as it grows, eat the smaller subsequent spawns.

My preference in breeding is to only do this in a species tank. The rarer and more expensive any given species ism the more important this becomes. I do not want fry to be food for anything and I most certainly do not want an inexpensive other species to have the potential to pass on any diseases etc. the the fish I am trying to spawn.

The first secious spawning I did were zebra plecos. O do this in a bare bottom tank. However, I eventually changed from bare sand bottoms. It is esier to find the junk needed to be vacuumed out and it tend to slow down the movement of food due to current and also to cause what needs to be sucked out to pole up in a few places rather than to be scattered all over.

Finally, I prefer to have at least two filters in a a breeding tank at least one of which should be an air powered foam filter.

When you are deciding what to breed all of the above considerations matter.

One last observation here. All it take to get a spawn is two fish- one of each sex. However there are other options one might choose. Some fish will give a better genetic mix with more than just a pair. Bear in mind that in the wild the goal or reproduction is to have the strongest healthiest male and females to spawn with each other. That should yield the healthiest and strongest offpring.

I am neither smart nor skilled enough to determine which males and females are the best choice to spawn with each other. But the fish know this. So, I have always used an approach of working with groups rather than pairs or trios.

The final consideration and one of the most important decisions we can make when working to breed any species is diet. A high auqality varied diet is usually the best option. It is also often the more expensive option. We normally have 100% responsibility for what out fish will eat. This is not the time nor place to try to be cheap, imo.

Over the years I mostly worked with plecos, but I have had at least a dozen or more species spawn in my tanks- angels, discus, pseudomugil rainbows, corys, danios. swordtails and a few shrimp and assassin snails. I can also tell you that after over 24 years of discovering new eggs/wigglers/fry in a tank, I still do the happy fish dance.

Good luck with whatever you choose.

 

[Colin_T]

No snails or shrimp of any sort in a breeding tank because they all go after eggs even if people say they don't.

Have an air operated sponge filter in the breeding tank to keep the water clean but not suck up eggs or sperm.

Have a thin layer of sand or gravel on the bottom of the tank.

Pseudomugils either spawn in the substrate or in plants. Have lots of fine leaf plants (Java Moss) and floating plants like Water Sprite.
Make sure the plants are free of snails and hydra.

Feed the adults well (3-5 times per day) and look for fry swimming at the surface. Use a plastic container to scoop any fry out and move them into a separate rearing tank.

When you gravel clean the substrate, let the water settle in a white bucket and look for eggs on the bottom of the bucket.

Do more frequent water changes when feeding more often.

Make sure the tank is covered to stop the adults jumping out.

There's more info at the following link, along with culturing live food for baby fish.

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

 

[TwoTankAmin]

While I agree that amano shrimp will eat eggs and small fry, I can say, without a doubt, that Neocaradina davidi do not. I breed the blue dream variety in a tank that at times had breeding albino plecos. The pleco fry are more likely to eat the shrimp than the other way around. The Neos are algae eaters.

So I have to disagree with what Colin said. I also had breeding assassin snails (Anentome helena) in the tank with the Neos and BN and the snails left them all alone. Assassins will eat dead fish however. However, when it came to the expensive plecos I bred, they ere always the only living aquatic anaimals in the tanks. However, fish that sell for $100 and up are not worth risking, imo so no snails or bigger shrimp are kept with them.

 

[Colin_T]

Most suckermouth catfish like bristlenose, lay their eggs in caves and the male guards them. Rainbowfish, lampeyes and loaches scatter their eggs and don't protect them. So any shrimp or snail is going to have easy access to their eggs compared to eggs in a cave being protected by a male bristlenose.

If you want to be successful when breeding fish, don't have any living things in the tank besides the breeding fish.

 

[Beastije]

Are you a fan of any sort of mesh on the bottom? I know some people use it to have eggs dropped under it, to save them from the parents, but that only works for some fish right?

 

[EmmaS]

My two setups for breeding fish

 

[MattW]

I bought a massive sheet of knitting mesh when I was going to breed my Sawbwa. I had seen a couple of videos showing the benefits, so I thought it would work great for me. Only to find that they lay eggs on the floating plants/material. But it's a great tool for breeding egg scatterers!

 

[Colin_T]

I have never used nets or marbles to stop parent fish eating the eggs. I did try marbles years ago but it didn't make any real difference to the number of fry.

If there's a single pair of fish (1 male & 1 female) in the breeding tank, and they are well fed, they will breed, recover, not eat eggs, breed some more, etc. Egg eating is mostly seen when you have multiple prs in a tank or groups of fish. The ones that aren't breeding eat the eggs.

 

[Darby T]

So I freed and cleaned up my 25liter as the setup in it was just boring. I put it on my windowsill and am thinking. What about a breeding tank/fry rearing tank. Would someone advise about a setup? Should I have it running with a sponge filter and some...java moss ? Or prepare before the breeding attempt itself?

I know to keep it bare bottom, but what about snails? My IKEA spare box is full of diatome brown algae that the snails help with, but they will also eat the eggs some day

Fish I have to try are all egg scatterers. Mango loaches. Norman lampeye. Possible pseudomugil luminatus. I don't know if I need to look into some sort of mesh for the bottom. I have a yarn mop

 

[Darby T]

Hi. Your post caught my eye because I too set up a window tank to breed egg scatters. Living in Australia I naturally chose local Rainbows, my first love. The reason for my post is because I used an entirely different method that you might consider.
My first consideration was, what food will the newly hatched fry eat? Although Tetra put out a Liquafry for the purpose, I decided that natural live would be best. Which led me to Infusoria, naturally occurring in all established aquariums.
Starting with a bare tank of water taken from an established setup. Bare bottom, no filtration, just an airstone for circulation. Added numerous plants, again from established tanks. { I don't keep snails }
The next move is to grow the infusoria culture to a size that can support 50 or 60 fry. I do this by feeding the infusoria with live yeast sourced from my local baker. This is a delicate operation, overdone and will end up with a smelly mess. Use just enough yeast to cloud the water, then wait until the water clears before adding more yeast. As the infusoria culture grows the water will clear more rapidly. After several days it is time to introduce the collected eggs, but continue the yeast feeding until the fry are large enough to take dry food.
In my current system I select a well planted 4ft established tank and relocate all fish and transfer my external canister to anther tank, {keep it running for reintroduction later} and start the yeast process, about a week in such a large tank. I then introduce my breeding trio of rainbows, a wild caught Melatonia Dubalii male and two female Bosemanii. Spawning will start almost immediately. Five or six days later I move the parents back to their original tanks and watch for the results.
The combination of these two different species produces an infertile but very attractive fish that is readily accepted by local pet shops.

There ARE fry here.

 

[Colin_T]

In my current system I select a well planted 4ft established tank and relocate all fish and transfer my external canister to anther tank, {keep it running for reintroduction later} and start the yeast process, about a week in such a large tank. I then introduce my breeding trio of rainbows, a wild caught Melatonia Dubalii male and two female Bosemanii. Spawning will start almost immediately. Five or six days later I move the parents back to their original tanks and watch for the results.
The combination of these two different species produces an infertile but very attractive fish that is readily accepted by local pet shops.

All rainbowfish hybrids that come from fishes in the same genus are fertile. Your Melanotaenia boesemani and Melantoaenia duboulayi will be producing fertile offspring.

 

[Beastije]

Hi. Your post caught my eye because I too set up a window tank to breed egg scatters. Living in Australia I naturally chose local Rainbows, my first love. The reason for my post is because I used an entirely different method that you might consider.
My first consideration was, what food will the newly hatched fry eat? Although Tetra put out a Liquafry for the purpose, I decided that natural live would be best. Which led me to Infusoria, naturally occurring in all established aquariums.
Starting with a bare tank of water taken from an established setup. Bare bottom, no filtration, just an airstone for circulation. Added numerous plants, again from established tanks. { I don't keep snails }
The next move is to grow the infusoria culture to a size that can support 50 or 60 fry. I do this by feeding the infusoria with live yeast sourced from my local baker. This is a delicate operation, overdone and will end up with a smelly mess. Use just enough yeast to cloud the water, then wait until the water clears before adding more yeast. As the infusoria culture grows the water will clear more rapidly. After several days it is time to introduce the collected eggs, but continue the yeast feeding until the fry are large enough to take dry food.
In my current system I select a well planted 4ft established tank and relocate all fish and transfer my external canister to anther tank, {keep it running for reintroduction later} and start the yeast process, about a week in such a large tank. I then introduce my breeding trio of rainbows, a wild caught Melatonia Dubalii male and two female Bosemanii. Spawning will start almost immediately. Five or six days later I move the parents back to their original tanks and watch for the results.
The combination of these two different species produces an infertile but very attractive fish that is readily accepted by local pet shops.

There ARE fry here.
View attachment 370445

Thank you for sharing. I managed to raise few luminatus In a similar way, I took a piece of moss, squeezed out a filter sponge and keep all of that in a bucket that bred infusoria. And I just dropped eggs there.
The problem is I now need a breeding setup, as I can't collect eggs in the current one. But that would work !

 

[Beastije]

Ha I was at a fish fair and they had a clean infusoria culture so I bought it. Now I need to set up the 25 so it supports the infusoria culture but also has a sponge filter? Or just an air stone? Now I am co fused. Tips appreciated !

 

[Darby T]

All rainbowfish hybrids that come from fishes in the same genus are fertile. Your Melanotaenia boesemani and Melantoaenia duboulayi will be producing fertile offspring.

Theoretically that is true. When I first bred that hybrid, I got quite excited, thought I was on to something great. When breeding them failed, I started considering all the differences. One from New Guinea and one from Australia, from very different habitats, and displaying different behaviours in the aquarium. For instance, when catching them out of the tank the Dubalii stays out in the open and all but swims in to the net. By contrast the Bosemanii quickly go into hiding, which means that I almost have to wreck my setup to catch them. My statement that they are infertile may be proved wrong in the future, but purists would hope that I am right.
You are lucky in the U.S. in having Dans pet shop selling excellent Rainbows bred by Gary Lange. Perhaps a club member would like to try it one day?