Easy Fish To Start Breeding?

[CameronN]

Although I'm a bit of a noob when it comes to fish-keeping (Been doing it for around 2 years, but nothing above goldfish/loaches/bettas), I am really interested in the breeding aspect of the hobbie.

Anyways, what is a good beginners fish for new-breeders?

 

[This Old Spouse]

Guppy, platy or molly, with my choice being guppy.

What do you have now, and what's your setup?

 

[CameronN]

Guppy, platy or molly, with my choice being guppy.

What do you have now, and what's your setup?

Currently have 5 tiger barbs in a 10 gallon tank (adding them slow until a total of 6) with a walmart power filter, planning on upgrading to a 29 gallon tank. And use the 10g as my "love tank" lol.

 

[onidrase]

livebearers are very easy to breed. pretty much anything in that category is good for a new breeder.

also, if you're looking for something different, have a 30 gallon or more aquarium, and can live with only 2 fish, you can also look into convict cichlids, they breed like rabbits, so you'll end up with a lot of fry that you need to give away. they're also very aggressive though, and the aggression picks up even more with them when they're breeding, and they'll kill anything else in the tank.

 

[fluttermoth]

The thing with breeding fish, is that anything that is easily bred, there'll be no demand for, so you may well get stuck with an awful lot of fry you can't get rid of. So yes, livebearers and convicts are easy, but what if you can't sell or give away the fry?

You could end up (like my mum did a few years ago with kribs) with tanks full of fry that you can't even give away. At least you can usually find someone to take platies/swordtails/guppies, if you pick a popular colour strain; convicts are a nightmare to move on as most people just don't want aggressive, six inch cichlids...
I also can't begin to tell you how many deformed fry/unwanted non coloured female guppies left over from my mum's attempts to 'fix' a strain of blue guppies I've fed to my oscar...

Do think carefully; maybe get more experience in just keeping more rare, unusual or delicate fish before you think about moving into breeding.

I only say this through bitter experience, not to deliberately dissuade you!

 

[TropicalLad21]

+1 with Guppy - you want babies, dam they will give you some!

 

[Dieses Madchen]

I breed platys and swordtail, and I don't do it for the joy of breeding, it just happens. If you are looking into breeding to make money, go with fluttermoths idea and research into something rare. I give away my fry for free because there is no point in chargin as you can get them for a dollar at the LFS. If you want something new and challenging, and can afford the resources for it, you might look into breeding bettas as you already know how to care for them. But just like most fish, they will produce hundreds of babies. You need to make sure you are prepared for that.

 

[CameronN]

The thing with breeding fish, is that anything that is easily bred, there'll be no demand for, so you may well get stuck with an awful lot of fry you can't get rid of. So yes, livebearers and convicts are easy, but what if you can't sell or give away the fry?

You could end up (like my mum did a few years ago with kribs) with tanks full of fry that you can't even give away. At least you can usually find someone to take platies/swordtails/guppies, if you pick a popular colour strain; convicts are a nightmare to move on as most people just don't want aggressive, six inch cichlids...
I also can't begin to tell you how many deformed fry/unwanted non coloured female guppies left over from my mum's attempts to 'fix' a strain of blue guppies I've fed to my oscar...

Do think carefully; maybe get more experience in just keeping more rare, unusual or delicate fish before you think about moving into breeding.

I only say this through bitter experience, not to deliberately dissuade you!

I heard that Tiger Barbs are somewhat easily breedable, but as some of you may have seen I don't have any males (or no one can sex them right). Is there any place online that will allow me to buy specific genders of tiger barbs?

Or are tiger barbs just not recommend for beginning breeders?

I breed platys and swordtail, and I don't do it for the joy of breeding, it just happens. If you are looking into breeding to make money, go with fluttermoths idea and research into something rare. I give away my fry for free because there is no point in chargin as you can get them for a dollar at the LFS. If you want something new and challenging, and can afford the resources for it, you might look into breeding bettas as you already know how to care for them. But just like most fish, they will produce hundreds of babies. You need to make sure you are prepared for that.

Not to offend anyone, but I just don't like bettas, so they aren't really on my list of things to breed.

 

[fluttermoth]

Actually tiger barbs are one of the more easily bred egg layers (which are harder than livebearers). With any egglayers, getting the first food right is the critical point; you have to think about and arrange for that before you try and spawn the fish.

I don't know off hand any online sites that would sell you a particular sex of barb; you'll need to learn to sex them yourself and pick out the ones you want from the dealers tanks.

Information on breeding the more common egglayers is freely available online (I think there's a sticky about it on this forum too, if anyone can post it)

If you do decide to breed your tiger barbs, can I please, please beg you to make sure they're properly marked ones? The quality of tigers has dropped terribly in the last few years, due to indiscriminate breeding and crossing with the green variety, so nearly all the tigers I see now are badly marked by black blotches between the third and fourth stripe

 

[OldMan47]

If you have the room for it, the convict cichlids are among the most easily bred fish. They are so easy that commercial establishments have been known to breed them just to use the fry as fish food for carnivores. Unfortunately they are much like livebearers in one respect, there is no market to speak of for the fry.
I would suggest that you find out what is in demand in your local area and select the easiest among those as your breeding project. If wild type livebearers are in demand, they can almost all be bred easily. If egg layers are in demand, figure out which ones are easiest for you. The cichlids, even convicts, provide fry care. Egg scatterers like zebras are very easy since they breed almost constantly and all you need do is preserve the newly hatched fry. Do not breed something just because it is easy. You do not have huge ponds to grow out fry to a size where they can be sold. Instead you will want to be selective.

 

[This Old Spouse]

Actually tiger barbs are one of the more easily bred egg layers (which are harder than livebearers). With any egglayers, getting the first food right is the critical point; you have to think about and arrange for that before you try and spawn the fish.

I don't know off hand any online sites that would sell you a particular sex of barb; you'll need to learn to sex them yourself and pick out the ones you want from the dealers tanks.

Information on breeding the more common egglayers is freely available online (I think there's a sticky about it on this forum too, if anyone can post it)

If you do decide to breed your tiger barbs, can I please, please beg you to make sure they're properly marked ones? The quality of tigers has dropped terribly in the last few years, due to indiscriminate breeding and crossing with the green variety, so nearly all the tigers I see now are badly marked by black blotches between the third and fourth stripe

So THAT'S what that's all about?? I have one older batch of 9 that are perfect, but the latest batch of 5 have two that have that extra blotch. aHA!

 

[CameronN]

Actually tiger barbs are one of the more easily bred egg layers (which are harder than livebearers). With any egglayers, getting the first food right is the critical point; you have to think about and arrange for that before you try and spawn the fish.

I don't know off hand any online sites that would sell you a particular sex of barb; you'll need to learn to sex them yourself and pick out the ones you want from the dealers tanks.

Information on breeding the more common egglayers is freely available online (I think there's a sticky about it on this forum too, if anyone can post it)

If you do decide to breed your tiger barbs, can I please, please beg you to make sure they're properly marked ones? The quality of tigers has dropped terribly in the last few years, due to indiscriminate breeding and crossing with the green variety, so nearly all the tigers I see now are badly marked by black blotches between the third and fourth stripe

Might be hard because I bought em at petco (2 are albino, cause they only had 3 regulars), 1 of the regular ones have a black splotch in between its stripes, so that one won't be bred.

 

[fluttermoth]

Actually tiger barbs are one of the more easily bred egg layers (which are harder than livebearers). With any egglayers, getting the first food right is the critical point; you have to think about and arrange for that before you try and spawn the fish.

I don't know off hand any online sites that would sell you a particular sex of barb; you'll need to learn to sex them yourself and pick out the ones you want from the dealers tanks.

Information on breeding the more common egglayers is freely available online (I think there's a sticky about it on this forum too, if anyone can post it)

If you do decide to breed your tiger barbs, can I please, please beg you to make sure they're properly marked ones? The quality of tigers has dropped terribly in the last few years, due to indiscriminate breeding and crossing with the green variety, so nearly all the tigers I see now are badly marked by black blotches between the third and fourth stripe

So THAT'S what that's all about?? I have one older batch of 9 that are perfect, but the latest batch of 5 have two that have that extra blotch. aHA!

Well, yes, it is...)
I was complaining to my mum (who will breed anything she can ) about the poor, mismarked tigers we get, and she said, "well, breed your own then", but I'm afraid I really can't be assed; plus the fact that ALL the tigers I've bought over the last SEVEN YEARS!!! have been mismarked and I utterly refuse to breed from the #41#### things!
Perhaps, if I could get hold of some proper, nicely marked, wild strain tigers, I might consider breeding them.
In breeding any animal, your aim should be to improve the breed or strain, or preserve the wild type; else, what is the point?

 

[CameronN]

Actually tiger barbs are one of the more easily bred egg layers (which are harder than livebearers). With any egglayers, getting the first food right is the critical point; you have to think about and arrange for that before you try and spawn the fish.

I don't know off hand any online sites that would sell you a particular sex of barb; you'll need to learn to sex them yourself and pick out the ones you want from the dealers tanks.

Information on breeding the more common egglayers is freely available online (I think there's a sticky about it on this forum too, if anyone can post it)

If you do decide to breed your tiger barbs, can I please, please beg you to make sure they're properly marked ones? The quality of tigers has dropped terribly in the last few years, due to indiscriminate breeding and crossing with the green variety, so nearly all the tigers I see now are badly marked by black blotches between the third and fourth stripe

So THAT'S what that's all about?? I have one older batch of 9 that are perfect, but the latest batch of 5 have two that have that extra blotch. aHA!

Well, yes, it is...)
I was complaining to my mum (who will breed anything she can ) about the poor, mismarked tigers we get, and she said, "well, breed your own then", but I'm afraid I really can't be assed; plus the fact that ALL the tigers I've bought over the last SEVEN YEARS!!! have been mismarked and I utterly refuse to breed from the #41#### things!
Perhaps, if I could get hold of some proper, nicely marked, wild strain tigers, I might consider breeding them.
In breeding any animal, your aim should be to improve the breed or strain, or preserve the wild type; else, what is the point?

Where would you go to get a hold of well marked fishies? Btw, my goal with breeding them is to improve the stain.

 

[fluttermoth]

Good goal

You just have to visit as many different shops as you can until you see a fish, or fishes, that look like your idea of the perfect tiger barb