Ok, you guys that have been pushing me to breed fish…

[Magnum Man]

So, one of my goals this year, is to get my 2- 30 gallon longs set up ( for breeding ), but before I get too far down that path, I need to have some idea of what to put in it…

BTW, I’m watching my Denison barbs dancing again this morning…

I could try to raise Rosy Minnows, as feeders ( that would be most practical ) but the push has always been towards the more unusual fish… I don’t currently have a place that will take them… the local pet store has a policy not to “buy” home bred fish. I have done some store trades with the fish manager in the past, but it would have to be something she can’t get from her suppliers, and something that sells right away, and it’s not like she would take a full batch, and they would have to be grown out to at least juvenile age / size… and I’m not really keen on breeding sibling fish, so I’d prefer fish from at least different sources, to spread out the gene pool a bit…

I’d prefer something I have gotten to thrive ( like the Denison’s for example ) … not sure how many eggs, or even if the Denison’s would spawn in a 30 gallon… often the Africans are inferred, but there is not an easy market for them…. I don’t want to end up feeding something “special” to the Bichir, because I can’t get rid of them… we don’t have any local clubs, to sell at, or even give them away…

I’m just not in a location, to get rid of offspring

… and being selfish, I sure do love watching the spawning in my community tanks, if those fish got moved to the breeding tanks, they wouldn’t be as visible, and those Denisons have been dancing for about an hour now…

 

[Back in the fold]

Raise some fry before you worry about how to get rid of them . A guy never gets as many as he thinks he will except in the case of Convict Cichlids . People cheat themselves out of something very interesting and fun by not raising fry of something they like . If you really like any particular fish you should want to see them go through their whole life cycle . You will have to cull your fry though . Runts and cripples will appear and you might want to have a “culler” in one of your aquariums like that butcher bichir .

 

[Magnum Man]

We’ve talked before about the convicts…

I do breed Tilapia, and I like doing that, then eating them… I’ve been kind of expecting King Tiger Pleco babies, they are in a community tank, but not really any competition in that tank, other than pest snails, I have 5 in that tank, from 2 different sources, bought at 2 different times, so I was hoping… but I get to watch a lot of dancing, between several different fish, in the various community tanks…

I got 2 different breeding colonies, from 2 different sources, of Cherry shrimp, and they have been breeding well enough, that I’ll be spreading those around to other tanks…

 

[Back in the fold]

Hey yeah ! You were culling your Tilapia . See ? It’s no different than what nature does . Magnum “Bichir” Man . LOL !

 

[gwand]

When it rains it pours. I left today for a 7 day vacation just as my Anomalochromis thomasi, Apistogramma cacatuoides and sailfin Molly produced fry. With me not home to feed them will there be survivors.

 

[GaryE]

You might have survivors.

I breed fish for a different purpose. I figure that if I get something rare, I will only have it for its lifetime, which is just a couple of years for many fish. If I like that fish and see that it does something interesting, I want to learn more (or just to enjoy them). So I breed enough for me to keep going with them. That's it.

I think we're all very optimistic about how many fry we get. If you breed for numbers, you can get them. But you can also breed for a dozen young making it to adulthood, and that means that you won't end up thinking that it would be great to have fish A or fish B again, and discovering it isn't in the hobby either where you can access it, or where anyone keeps it going.

I would love to get Steatocranus sp Red Eye, again. Another Cichlid would be Pelvicachromis kribensis, or Benitochromis sp. Any Procatopus would be more than welcome - ditto for Platopochilus (I did breed both, but things went wrong with such difficult fish). Some of the Apistogramma cacatuoides wild morphs I had are things I know I'll never see again. There are a number of Aphyosemions I'd love to see again. And my African tetras, most of which didn't have names I could find when they arrived, would be a treat to keep now that I know much more about them. I know enough to have learned there's more to them all.

The market in fish goes to the mainstream (word play intended). If a fish doesn't sell fast, it often just doesn't sell anymore. I suspect a lot of us think species will always be on someone's stocklist. Many simply vanish, and since their habitats vanish too, many species have been imported once or twice, sometimes decades ago.

 

[gwand]

I am breeding because I find it enjoyable. The parental behaviors are fascinating. First time parents make a mess of things. But practice makes perfect. I’m lucky that my lfs will take my excess.

 

[Magnum Man]

I'm a pretty practical guy, ( except for my desire for interesting fish, that no one else has ), but there are so many fish out there, that if one of my unusual ones dies, that is just space for something else new & different... I don't mean to sound callous about it, some are fish I enjoy very much... but I simply can't have everyone I find interesting...

back to practical, a little breeding info I saw, sounds like Rosy Minnows, are very easy breed in an aquarium, and with as nasty as Feeder fish are, when purchased, it becomes much more practical, if you are going to need feeders... as a plus, they may be easy to sell, to serious carnivore keepers, who also know how nasty the feeder fish business is... & the 30 gallon, could be the breeder tank, & a larger outside tank, like I use to grow out my Tilapia, during spring, summer, and fall, could also be used as a grow out tank for feeders as well...

 

[GaryE]

One of my motivations for breeding tetras is to have dither fish. This is a species that functions to draw a shy species out. The shy fish will see a shoaler happily living in the water column up high and come out of cover on the principle that if anyone is going to get eaten by birds, it'll be the guys up near the surface.

A second use of dithers is as target fish for breeding Cichlid pairs - they need something to attack to keep the pair together for raising fry. I tend not to use that technique, and if I do, I use fish that are not going to have to worry, as they are too fast to be harmed. I never use Cichlid dithers unless the tank is large enough and deep enough for the dithers to be unharmed and not especially bothered.

I do use tetras to draw Corys out.

The problem is, most of my Corys are wild caught, and fishfarm diseases are a real danger to them. Wild caught tetras are rare and expensive. So I get a few farmed tetras and breed them. The next generation are raised away from the parents, who are out once the eggs are produced, so I have clean companion fish for the wilds.

That to me is a practical approach that gets a job done in a safe and easy way.

 

[AJ356]

Magnum Mania? You have a good location for giving away fry surely? There is a bichir system near you is their not?

 

[TwoTankAmin]

The easier it it is to get a species to spawn, the less it is worth. the more offspring that are in a typical spawn, the less they are worth.

I managed to pay for my hobby by breeding rare plecos. I chose the B&W Hypancistrus mostly from the Big bend of the Rio Xingu in Brazil. They can be kept in smaller tanks- 40B or 33L. I bred zebras in a 30B.

The rarer the fish, the longer it takes to reach spawning size/age and the fewer fry it get in a spawn, the more it will sell for. The problem is these sort of fish cost a lot more money and so do their offspring.

The problem with breeding the easier more prolific species is you get overrun by the offspring pretty quickly.