egg laying fish

[xrenegadex]

so i'll ask here....

i want to start breeding fish to sell.....(pet store near me is buying them off me for 1/2 the price they sell the fish for) Guppies, platies....are easy. I wanted to tackle egg laying fish. Is it possible to breed them? If so, how?

 

[sylvia]

That's a very complicated question to answer. It depends on the fish. Danios, for example, are very easy to breed but would probably not fetch a very high price (I'm reffering to zebra/leopard danios). With these it's a matter of putting mature males and females together in a breeding tank with a layer of marbles at the bottom, letting them spawn and then removing all the adults. The marbles keep the parents from eating the eggs. You then remove the marbles and wait for the fry to hatch. Once they are free-swimming, you feed them on very small foods and powdered flake. Other egg-layers like some annual killies are more difficult to breed as it involves drying the eggs out. Some
cichlids like convicts are incredibly easy to breed - just put a pair in a 20 gallon with water and food and voila while others like discus demand a lot more care and a larger tank. Then there's gouramies, most of which are bubblenest builders. Three-spots are by far the easiest. The male builds a nest of floating bubbles, chases the female under it, fertilises the eggs, collects them and puts them in the nest and then guards the nest until the fry are free-swimming. You need a seperate breeding tank for gouramies as the female (and any other fish) have to be removed right after spawning and the male has to be taken out once the fry are free-swimming. Then the fry require very tiny foods but grow quickly. They also need to develop their labyrinths which can make things more complicated. Honestly, it's impossible to answer your question fully. You need to be more specific. For a start, what sort of tanks and equipment do you have available to you and what sort of fish would you be interested in breeding? I personaly think you will need to do the initial research yourself - search on google.com - and come back and ask for more details once you have decided on what sort of fish you want to breed. Good luck with whatever youd decide and make sure you realise that breeding fish is a very time-consuming activity and you are dealing with living things so make sure you can sell them all to your LFS before you do anything.

 

[xrenegadex]

ok....for starters...I am breeding fancy guppies and there already sold, just need to wait for them to get bigger.
I wanted something easy but can work with what I got...

i have a 20 g. tank that's filled, the guppies are in there. I have a large, 2 g. bowl. That's where the guppie fry are. I have several small (nano tanks i think?) I also have a 10 g. that isn't even used yet.

could I get a pair of danios and put them in the 10 g tank?


[edit] I also have filters for all the tanks listed, and even a few more

 

[sylvia]

Danios need a group of 5 and at least a 20 gallon so no, a pair in a 10 would not work. Maybe consider honey gouramies - they are more difficult but need less space. Alternatively, maybe you could try a pair of rams (neotropical dwarf cichlids). Again, these are not easy but can be bred in a 10 gallon and, unlike the danios or gouramies, the parents are good with their fry. If you can get your hands on american-flag fish, these aren't too difficult to breed either and it should be quite possible in a 10 gallon. Just keep in mind that the fish I just suggested are NOT easy but they WILL breed in a 10 gallon and should be quite easy to sell for a good price to your LFS. I suggest you research these species more if you are interested though first so you can see what each would involve. You could also try certain shell-dwelling cichlids like n. multifasciatus in a 10 gallon. they are easy to breed (because you don't realy need to do anything) but these fish do have some specific requirements as they need snail shells to live in and come from african rift lakes so preffer certain water parameters. These would be sure to sell well though. I think cories might also be a possibility but you'll need to do some more research into this first.

 

[xrenegadex]

i'm beginning to lean towards cories...

i rememeber a little while back, I had small, transparent balls (with little white specs in them) sticking to the glass in the tank.....where they eggs? cause a few days after i saw them, they vanished....(maybe the fish ate them)

 

[xrenegadex]

now that i did research....i'm thinking about breeding Koi's.......i know there big.....but i checked and a 3' Koi could get me $400. A 5" one can give me $75....

 

[grayshark]

http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showtopic=76864 my thread I need help to breed gupys but asking a differnt question help me please. thanks grayshark