What to do with breeding fish.....

[Rob 28]

I am a new fish keeper and do not have the issue of breeding fish yet but wondered what you do with all they fry when I do ever have breeding fish. (forgive the ignorance) If for example I woke up one morning and found that my opaline gouramis had been upto things in the night and built a bubble nest - do you take out some of the eggs if you wanted to keep a couple of juveniles or would most not survive anyway ? I cant understand what one would do with 800 fry !

 

[cat.fish]

with 800 fry, hmmm.... i would say keep em . because they're free and if you want you should sell them to a LFS. have fun.


HTH
cat.fish

 

[guppymonkey]

You can't take the eggs out and have them live. If you want to keep some of the fry you should wait until the fry are free swimming. Most breeders cull part of their breeding stock. (Meaning that they either feed some of the babies to other fish or flush them) It reduces the number of fry by taking the weakest and keeping the strongest and most fit. It also makes handling the fry easier as the number lowers.

Just because there is a bubblenest doesn't necessarily mean that they are going to successfully raise fry. Other fish or even the current of the tank could disturb the nest. Its generally not a good idea to try to breed fish unless you are willing to get a lot more tanks.