White Cloud Mountain Minnows Dead

[Davemold]

I had six minnows in a 50 gallon tank along with several peppered cory catfish and variatus platys. All have been doing great for a couple months now, began tank in November 2017. One minnow grew a large belly and I believe it was a gravid female, two minnows looked like vibrant healthy males. The tank is unheated, room temperature 68 - 69 degrees.

I read lots of stuff online for breeding. I bought acrylic green yarn, boiled it and rinsed it, to make a spawning mop. I washed and rinsed a fish bowl, and filled it with 2 gallons of water. I use city tap water, and aerate it in a 5 gallon pail for 24 hours before using. Temperature of bowl and tank were both 69 degrees when I moved the female and a male into the bowl last night.

Soon after the move, I noticed both minnows were at the surface, maybe gulping air. After a while they looked comfortable an inch or two below the surface. This morning they were dead, one held in the yarn, the other at the bottom under the yarn.

I read somewhere to use clean dechlorinated water rather than tank water, so possibly that was a problem. The other thing I'm thinking about was if the yarn had something deadly with it. I wonder if any of you might share some advice or experience about this.

 

[King puff]

Did the bowl have a filter? WCM come from fast moving water. This means that there is a lot of o2 in the water for the fish to breath. In your case, a bowl without a filter deprives the fish of o2 which probably caused their demise.

 

[Davemold]

Did the bowl have a filter? WCM come from fast moving water. This means that there is a lot of o2 in the water for the fish to breath. In your case, a bowl without a filter deprives the fish of o2 which probably caused their demise.

No filter or air pump in the bowl. A week ago I had a single minnow in the bowl for 3 days with no filter or air pump and it was ok. I did put a plate over the top last night to reduce evaporation and help keep the temp at 68 degrees. The bowl is 3/4 full of water, leaving a 6"x8" (48 square inches) of surface area for oxygen diffusion.

 

[fluttermoth]

Although it's almost impossible for us to say for certain, it will almost certainly have been either a lack of oxygen (unlikely, but possible) or a build up of ammonia (most likely) that killed your fish.

To breed and raise fry properly, you do need a properly cycled, filtered tank; an air driven sponge filter is the best choice, so the fry can't get sucked up.

Fish fry are very, very sensitive to poor water quality, and can easily become stunted, if in too small a volume of water, so you would need a tank for growing on, even if you did manage to spawn the adults in a small bowl.

 

[Davemold]

Although it's almost impossible for us to say for certain, it will almost certainly have been either a lack of oxygen (unlikely, but possible) or a build up of ammonia (most likely) that killed your fish.

To breed and raise fry properly, you do need a properly cycled, filtered tank; an air driven sponge filter is the best choice, so the fry can't get sucked up.

Fish fry are very, very sensitive to poor water quality, and can easily become stunted, if in too small a volume of water, so you would need a tank for growing on, even if you did manage to spawn the adults in a small bowl.

It seems unlikely to me that ammonia would build up from two minnows in two gallons of water in less than 10 hours, but I'm inexperienced so I won't argue about it. I also have a 10 gallon tank, but it has platy fry in it already, so I was stuck for options when I thought spawning was eminent for the minnows.

My hunch was there may be a chemical from the yarn, or the new water was too different from the 50 gallon tank water and shocked them somehow. I'm hoping to hear if I should have transferred existing tank water into the bowl or not, and if anyone has had trouble from yarn. Ammonia poisoning or lack of oxygen are also possible. There are just so many variables and I'm hoping to learn something from this.

 

[Munroco]

Assuming your yarn isn't toxic, you could put the spawning mop in your tank, and when the fish have spawned, move it into fry tank, which you could fill with water from your main.

 

[fluttermoth]

I must say, I've used many many types of yarn for making spawning mops over the years (I'm a knitter, I have lots of yarn, lol) and have never experienced any problems.

 

[Colin_T]

The fish were poisoned by something and I would be looking at the tap water and the spawning mop. Acrylic wool can be contaminated by anything depending on where it is kept. Having said that, I have made hundreds of spawning mops from green acrylic wool and never had fish die from it. But you might have been unlucky and got some that was contaminated.

You are better off using half tank water and half well aged tap water that is completely free of chlorine/ chloramine. Pretty sure you lot have chloramine in the states and that needs an established filter to remove the ammonia from the water after the chlorine/ ammonia (chloramine) bond is broken with the water conditioner/ dechlorinating agent.

Make sure the bucket that had the tap water in was a fish only bucket and had not been used for anything by anyone else.

Make sure the fish bowl was clean and had no soap or chemical residue in.

White clouds don't eat their eggs or young and can be bred in their main tank. Platies don't normally eat the young either if the platies are well fed.

To breed white clouds have a group in a tank without a heater. Keep them well fed and do regular water changes. As the temperature increases in spring, the fish will spawn in the plants. You can leave the fry in with the parents or scoop them out with a small bucket and move them into a rearing tank.

If you are trying to breed them out of season, keep them cool for a month or so and then use an aquarium heater to increase the temperature by 3 or 4 degrees Celsius. That will usually get them going. If not try doing a 75-90% water change using well aged water that is free of chlorine/ chloramine.

If the fish still don't want to breed, separate males and females for 5 days and then put them together.