Hello And A Question About Group Breeding Egg Scatterers

[signrik]

Hy im rik from lancashire uk 
It would not be nice asking questions and learning from you folk without saying "hello"
so HELLO
I have been into fish three times in my life and each time I got carried away   never content to just have 1 community tank it always goes into overdrive and gets so much that I have to reign it in by leaving the hobby as it takes over my life
This time is different because I am starting a pet supplies shop and have decided to have just a few banks of tanks with a few fish in
I have not opened yet   but set the tanks up six months ago and  it just looks like any of my fish rooms instead of a organised shop 
The tiny angels are massive now and i dont want to sell any as they look fantastic,beautiful black veiltails etc,   the kribs have bred in two tanks and the babys are big enough to sell    The live bearers are now grand parents  and worst of all  the albino convicts which i inherited, I did not want them but the owner was going to lose them somewere   so I had to take them they were little fry I gave the parents away  and before i knew it they grew up and in one tank without me even noticing I had 5 pairs with fry   with another 12 singletons  in a smallish tank it was a nightmare
   I took the non coupled fish out as it world war three in there    there was even one pair stealing babys of the others   in the end I took 4 pairs out left the babys in and swirled them up to mix them   and now the dominant pair is happily  looking after 5 sets of babys and every time the others pair up and lay eggs I siphon them off into the electric blue rams in the tank underneath I feel bad but as long as they are eggs I can do it if they become fry I cant
When i open the shop every customer is going to get a free pair of crayfish and a free pair of albino convicts   if they want I am even thinking of marketing the lovely albino convicts as "white severums".
 
The good news is having never bred any egg scatterers I found one little baby danio in my sump filter so thats one more to cross of my list and it has given me a purpose to try a project before I open up my new shop
 
The project is to get all the egg scatterers   into a purpose built breeding tank I have set up  with marbles, all at the same time neons, black widows, danios ,giant danios and about 4 other teras and rasboras   and see it is possible to breed as many as i can at the same time   is it possible? They all seem to breed in the same way  ,  They are well fed on frozen blood worm lots of newly hatched brineschrimp  that I have been practising with and all are mature a  I am not sure if I might get some of them to breed at the same time  but i only have three weeks untill the shop opens and then with boring dog food deliveries etc I might not have time or space    I have been  starting quite a few inforsoria cultures and have some good microworm ready for when the possible mixed batch get bigger     In the next few days I am going to try to sex all the different fish as best as I can,  into a mixed male tank and  a mixed female tank and leave them for about 4 days seperate and them put them all together in the breeding tank at the same time with a least ten hours in the dark and next day take the cover off   Do egg scatterers release pheromones if they do, does different species react?
I will try to post pictures even if it is a dissaster   a success to me is even one baby of at least two types (apart from a danio) as I like to keep a tally of different species I have bred over the years

 

[RCA]

Hello Rik, welcome to the forum. Firstly may I recommend that you will find it easier, and are likely to get more responses, by separating out the main question(s) you want answers to, as otherwise:
a) people do not read long posts as much
b) a lot of different information and questions can get confusing/lost.
c) other users will answer based on their specific areas of expertise.

My thoughts so far are, well done on getting the fish to breed so far. We love pictures on here, so would love to see your set-up and your Angels

When i open the shop every customer is going to get a free pair of crayfish and a free pair of albino convicts if they want I am even thinking of marketing the lovely albino convicts as "white severums".

I would take care selling fish as something they are not, as you could get into all sorts of bother in doing so.

I would also take care giving away free fish and crayfish as these maybe taken as they are free, yet may cause havoc in the tanks they go into if they are not compatible with other inhabitants.

In respect to the egg scatters, I have always found it best to keep each species separate, providing plenty of plants for the fry to hide in. That said I have had danios breed in a community aquarium. However, if your plan is to get them breeding to sell on, then it is probably better to keep them separate to be able to ensure they feel safe enough to breed regularly and thus provide the right set-up for each species.

I would also tend not to use glass marbles, as in my experiences a lot of debris gets trapped between them, plus fry will also. In addition, I had read that certain glass can leached liquid into the aquarium killing the fish.

Good luck with your endeavours and we look forward to more news and pictures . Welcome once again...

 

[signrik]

It was a little tongue in cheek I would never tell folk albino convicts were severems  just my humour  
yes thanks for the advice though      I have the tank set up with the glass beads and marbles   already so will go along with it with some plants in   I was going to try to use some sort of mesh but I dont want to get the different sizes of fish getting trapped 
will try shortly thanks

 

[Munroco]

I have been thinking of setting up a breeding tank something like this..... I have a 36" * 15" deep tank, and I planned on splitting it from top to bottom with a plastic mesh. The bottom part would be 6" deep with bare glass bottom and the top 9" above the the mesh would be something like java moss and/or spawning mops for the fish to lay eggs in. It would mean I could put the females in the top, feed em up for a few days then put in the male(s). I could then leave them for 3 days or so and hopefully have loads of eggs in the bottom part of the tank.
 
I wouldn't have to keep watching the fish to remove them as soon as they had spawned. Then I would take the shelf out and leave the moss so the fry could eat any micro-organisms till they are big enough for brine shrimp. This is all in my head atm and I'll probably never get round to it . This could work for multiple species too I suppose.