Questions On Breeding Zebra Danios!

[three-fingers]

In all the time I've kept fish, I've never bred a species and actually raised the fry, so I've decided to breed zebra danios in my old 30" tank .

My danios spawn all the time in my 50 gal, but the eggs are eaten very fast. I've got nearly everything I think I need, however I do have a few questions :

1. I've read a few places (not very reliable places though) that zebra danios pair up and rarely spawn with another mate, is this true? As I would like to purchase a couple of male danios to vary the gene pool a little bit, and if that's the case breeding the new males with my existing female would probably not turn out to be much of a success. I don't want to breed my females with any of the males I have now, I think zebra danios are inbred enough as it it....

2.Can I feed the fry on spilurina powder, or is liquifry just the best thing to use? I feel the spilurina powder would be much better value for money and I would have future uses for it, while any remaining liquifry would probably just go to waste.

3.What is the best temperature for spawning (my aquarium where they are now is set at 25 degrees celcius), and whats the best for raising the fry at? I figure the higher the temperature, the faster the fry will develop, but does rearing them at a higher temperature have any negative effects? I was thinking of going for around 27 degrees celcius.

4.Anyone know what would happen if I crossed an xanthistic zebra danio with a regular one? Of the 9 zebra danios in my tank I only have 2 females and one of them is xanthistic, so which one I use depends which one looks more full of eggs at the time. Would I get some regular and some xanthistic danios from the spawn? Or would they be like a cross between the two, paler than regular danios but not xanthistic. If the latter is the case then I wont use the xanthistic female, because I don't think slightly pale danios are going to be a very popular variety...

All help is greatly appreciated .

 

[aaronus]

I don't know the answers to your four questions. I just wanted to say: make sure you have marbles or something at the bottom of the breeding tank to hide the eggs when they fall so the parents can't eat them. Shallow water is good, like six inches deep.

 

[three-fingers]

Thanks for the tips Was going to go with about 6 inches deep, but wasn't sure about the marbles...
Doesn't sound too easy to clean (and would look a bit naff )...so I was planning on lots of java moss and fine leaved plants instead, think that would be OK?

I don't mind if the parents eat a lot of the eggs, as I cant raise hundreds of fry to adults in that size of tank, and I was actually slightly worried about getting too many fry.

Glad this topic has been bumped a little too .

 

[Damage]

Just a link that holds the answers to some of your questions: http/zfin.org/zf_info/zfbook/cont.html#cont2

I used to breed danios to sell to the LFS for some spare change. I did nothing special for them really. 2 females for every 1 male. I just made sure to have the right water temperatures and fed them live foods prior to mixing the males and females together. Bred them in a 10 gallon tank and once the fry grew out a little I moved them to a 40 gallon tank. If I recall correctly I believe I used brineshrimp from the moment they began to eat and had success with that. I could be wrong on this though. Mind you, I used to do this almost 4 years ago so I can't really remember. haha.

Danios in my experience are probably the simplest to breed. I'm sure you could get away with just putting 4 females and 2 males in a tank and doing nothing special just treating them the same way you normally do and still end up with a batch of eggs.

Quick short answers to some of your questions...

1. No, from my experiences they do not pair up or form pairs.
2. Any microorganism would work to feed them from the start, I think. If I were you I would probably just save myself the hassle and get some liquifry. Breeding fish is a rewarding and fun experience and I'm sure you would do it again.
3.

The best temperature for growth and for accurate staging is 28.5°C.

As per the link above.
4. You would get some that are xanthistic and some that are regular. I'm not sure if xanthistic is a recessive gene or not. I'll assume it is and just say that 1 out of 4 may be xanthistic, unless the male carries some form of the xanthistic gene as well, then it could be a higher count such as 1 out of every 2 fry. Thats not to say you cannot get another color morph that is a different combination of genetics to form a pale color. There is also the possibility of getting no xanthistic if the male carries 2 dominant genes. (Based on the assumption that xanthistic danios are recessive) If you really are curious before you start breeding then I suggest you read up on Danio color morph genetics.

 

[three-fingers]

Cool, thanks so much for the link and answers, I'd like to use the xanthistic female as that means I don't have to buy any more danios to vary the gene pool some. I'll try find out whether it is a recessive gene or not, probably/hopefully it is.

Thanks again!