Breeding Torpedo Barbs/denison Barbs...

Fluval-1200

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Anyone have much luck with this? I've read about the people finding a batch of fry during tank maintenance but that's not got much decent info into breeding.
 
Ive got a nice year + old group of 8 which I can clearly tell apart now and almost had a spawn.
 
Any behaviour to spot or triggers known to work?
 
 
 
Besides the breeding comment at SeriouslyFish, where I suspect your comment about them being found by chance during tank maintenance came from, I've never come across reports anywhere else. My old group certainly did not show sign, but these were with the Barilius and African catfish at 22C, I rehomed them to someone who has a group of 30+ in what is apparently an amazing long tank. This no doubt has a bearing on why these barbs are often quite expensive to buy in the shops, because they cannot be "bred at will."
 
If your sig is correct, I cannot see them breeding if kept permanently with tropical fish in tropical water, because Redline Torpedos are not not tropical fish. They are temperate, these have evolved in Indian waters that drop to ~15C during a winter period and a similar period at ~24C, for most fishkeepers this means they can be placed in a heaterless tank to replicate such temperature fluctuations with an average temp of ~19/20C. These temperature changes can play a part in breeding temperate fish, for example I had some Barilius a few years back at 22C (because they were with Congo River tropical catfish) and when a fishkeeper bought them off me, he put them in a cooler temperate setup with some Glytothorax catfish and had them going through the motions of spawning.
 
Thanks for the input, ive had from what I can gather a close call - very odd swimming together and in certain hidden areas of my tank, these were during a straight from tap water change. I do sometime's drain my tank by a 1/4 and let my spray bar run, trying to mimic rain. Noticed this when I had a planted tank, they used the wisteria quite a lot for hiding places. One day one of them came out of the wisteria looking very tired and abit battered.
 
My sig is wrong and wont change for some reason, I have 8 torpedoes, 3 kuhli and 1 sailfin pleco now. Ive got 2 garra rufas in my qt tank but there very hyper and might not suit my tank well.
 
Bumped my torpedo group to 12 a couple weeks ago, I can also tell between the sexes but no clue what each one is lol.
 
Getting behaviour from them but not tried anything yet, they seem to favour a spray bar too.
 
If you really want to breed a fish that "does not breed in the home aquaria". The first thing I suggest is watch the fish, I dont mean just look at the tank, sit there hour upon hour and study their behaviour, watch for any changes. You would need to do a 24 hour study to see when they are most likely to spawn, some maybe early morning, some dusk, and a further yearly study, some fish only have a spawning season when they spawn a couple of times a year. When I bred my weather loach I had been watching the tank for ages with just the two fish in, ok it was mostly pondering what to do with the tank, but the heavy rain storms and long wet winter at the time really changed their behaviour and I was lucky enough to be next to the tank when they started spawning. The only other accounts of weather loach breeding I found were accidental, finding fry in sump tanks etc.
 
My one and only witnessed clown loach spawn (unsuccessful at raising any fry though) was really early in the morning and most of the eggs were eaten before I realised what was going on, this was the morning after a water change.This was during the summer, the tank temperature had increased and I had dropped the water level slightly to get more surface aggitation from the filters - if this was a trigger for the clowns or not I am not sure I only saw one spawn.
 
You may need to experiment with water levels, lowering the water level may trigger spawning behaviour, or having a lower water level for a while then raising it may trigger spawning. Study the whole group, as there is no information on these spawning, they may spawn as a group, or two may split and spawn. They may even need a spawning mop type set up - no one knows at the moment.
 
Your chances of success with your current set up though are very slim with having other egg eating fish.
 
None of the above is actual scientific study, its only my own personal observations and experiences.
 
I completely agree with what your saying star4, I would love to sit there and watch them but I work everyday lol.
 
They defiantly change behaviour with a spray opposed to a duckbill type outlet, im guessing the flow simulates a flowing stream kind. My tank is under-going some changes atm so its only sand and a piece of bogwood (going for a pebble theme next)
 
Next thing im trying is a spray bar going width ways instead on length ways, stronger flow and then with the additions of pebbles they would have somewhere to hide/spawn.
 
That sounds good to me :) you can tinker with water level too.
 

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