odds are stacked against you, but sometimes it just happens

[Magnum Man]

I have a few fish here, that are breeding, and a lot of fish here, that the cards just don’t line up…

1st, it seems you need a mature male and female… very infrequently are fish sold, mature enough to mate right away, sometimes it can take years, often fish sold together, are from the same gene pool ( reads brothers and sisters ), and sometimes they are picky, and want to choose a mate…

parental skills varies greatly, some fish just turn around and eat their eggs or fry, often with egg scatterers, any tank mates just look at mating as a smorgasbord, and it happens that way, in the wild, there is just a much better chance of an egg or fry going unnoticed, in a lake, river, or ocean, than in our little ( by comparison ) glass boxes… some parents will litterally kill off all other tank mates to protect their young or nesting site…

but sometimes we turn on the light, and get surprised by 100’s of babies… unfortunately often the fish that surprise us, are harder to get rid of species… it just seems most likely the fish we wish would breed, are not the fish that bless us with 100’s of babies…

I write this, while I watch my female acara eat her 3rd ( known to me ) batch of unfertilized eggs… I guess it’s a nutritious meal, she puts back into her body, so maybe there will be a next time, with one of her tank mates mature enough to help her out…

my wild type swords are breeding nicely, as are a few other live bearers… I haven’t had the luck with any of my egg layers… recently… I have had convict cichlids in the past, I finally had to separate, to keep them from breeding ( so I know it’s possible ), and I refer back to my previous statement of harder to get rid of species…

 

[CassCats]

*cries in bristlenose pleco fry*

I hear you on this one, it's so very true that what ends up surprise breeding is often what no one wants more of

 

[Back in the fold]

And then you can be a guy like me that just can’t NOT keep them all . I always seem to wind up getting another aquarium and raising them all . I don’t have any difficulty offing my excess Killifish but nobody wants the common Endler’s I have . They’d use them as feeders and I don’t like that . Sometimes this gets expensive and tedious . I’m going through brine shrimp eggs and salt like crazy . Every single day I hatch the shrimp and collect them and feed them and reset the hatchers . Takes about 45 minutes to an hour but the payoff is watching the little fry eat . I love watching those little bellies turn orange .

 

[gimme30]

Why not move the eggs out? Acaras are popular, I'd think you wouldn't have much of an issue selling them off.
I'm at the point where I don't want any more surprises. They've finally stopped, but for a while my CPDs were breeding like crazy, to the point neither of my two closest LFS would take them anymore even though they sell well.

 

[Magnum Man]

with the acaras, I don’t have a mature male, so they are infertile eggs

 

[GaryE]

If you have a common fish that breeds, it's often unwanted, because it's common.

If you have a rare fish that breeds, it's often unwanted, because it's rare.

There's a conservatism in the hobby that rejects all possible new fishkeeping experiences, and locks into the familiar and well known. It's an interesting thing with many people. "New' fish aren't necessarily difficult, but if they are unfamiliar, people look at the auction bags and get the same odd look. It's almost like they're annoyed.

Because I had easy access to rare fish for many years, and have intentionally bred a couple of hundred different species, I've brought a lot of fish to club auctions. I've watched a lot of faces. It's quite interesting. I've heard comments like "Oh, he's brought something no one has ever heard of again" said like that's bad, or "the stores must know something about this fish because I've never seen one."

It's curious, but distribution is the bane of the fish breeder, as it is of the writer, artist or musician. You have to define that line between too available and too unknown. When I lived in a large city with decent stores, there were species that would be ordered in and sold maybe once every year to two years. People would see them in stores, but rarely. If you bred those, there was demand.

When you see a new fish, you can pull out your phone and get a sense of what it is easily and quickly. If it is like many 'new' fish and has no online info, you can see what it seems to be related to and get an idea. Or, if the the breeder is there, you can call up a lost skill and talk to the person.

Every fish I get, I try to breed. I'm selective about raising them though. If I get a brood of 100, I'll raise a small number for friends and fish clubs, and for me to have another generation. That might be ten fish. It's a hard hearted thing, but if you raise all 100, they all die from overstocking.

It's like collecting seeds from a favourite flower, if they don't act like perennials and grow in the tank beside their parents.

I distribute via my club and what the lfs will take. I breed some really easy common fish for the store (black neons and Pristellas right now) and try to slip in some oddballs, but mostly, I just breed to keep fish I like around in my tanks. You don't know a fish til you've had 3 generations. It's a challenge.

I hatch brine shrimp daily (it takes 5 minutes daily with the system I use) as I always have fry. Right now, I have Nothobranchius palmqvisti, Aphyosemion punctatum, Chromaphyosemion biteniatum and Pelvicachromis taeniatus still on the bbs, and am crossing my fingers that within the week I'll have Aphyosemion ogoense, louessense, primigenium and Pseudomugil luminatus. The luminatus would go to a store, and all the others are small numbers just for me to enjoy, unless one of the two or three local killiekeepers wants some. Those chickens aren't all hatched yet, so they don't count yet.

That's my version of fishkeeping fun.

 

[Magnum Man]

I imagine it’s hard to predict what people will want… the “zebra pleco’s” are rare in the hobby ( a fish unique, and rare enough, that people will pay good money, and line up to buy them )… of fish that are breeding for me, I would guess the Tiger Limia, could fall into that class of fish, if 2 nd or 3rd generations become more adjusted to humans, and become actually visible in the tanks…

I love my wild type swords, and as long as balanced sex offspring are available, I’m sure the pet store would take them for credit, but the more dramatic colors, or patterns , on a fish people think they can keep alive, is probably where the collectibility starts…

I should get off my butt, and get the tiger limia in a tank where they can socialize, as they are currently in a tank that is almost impossible to view them, and is only visible from my work area behind my aquariums, so where they are, the babies will be less afraid than their wild caught parents, but will never be a star… I should try to move some to a community tank or two…

it seems we may need to promote and develope some of our fish, before they can become famous…

 

[GaryE]

For me, the key has been to accept the single species tank as a good thing. I prefer them now, but it took time to realize that second hand tanks can be made beautiful, and that a fishroom was my route forward. Window boxes are good and are sometimes all we can manage, but when life gives you a shot at a garden or even a greenhouse, it can be a pleasant thing to go for it.

It takes a degree of planning and creativity to make a fishroom. I can probably put together 10 thoroughly satisfactory tanks for what most aquarists would pay for one. You learn as you go, as you have @Magnum Man .

You learn your time and budget constraints too.

If I sold fish online I could do okay with what I breed, but I live in a vast country with a smaller population than most members here, and shipping costs are over the top. It just isn't worth it to sell a rare fish for $15 and have $70 shipping costs. Before the cost crept up, I would send out 20-30 boxes some years, but now, no more. That outlet is closed to me. I found myself lowering fish prices because the shipping was too high, and then I'd have people angry at me when I gave the shipping estimate. That's money I don't touch except to spend it, but somehow, new aquarists wanted to blame me. I also had a lot of angry Americans blaming me for their fierce border restrictions on fish. I couldn't send fish or eggs south without them paying a whole lot in permits to their government, and I wasn't going to smuggle as so many asked me to. We live in a strange world.

So I breed fish to learn about breeding fish. I make no money at it, and I spend a fair bit that in other times, would have gone on vices.

This is the season of tank sales. The number of people on local marketplaces unloading set ups is almost comical. Summer comes and the tank feels like work. Then in Fall, the number of people looking for tanks spikes. Onine sales only take off when it's too cold to safely ship. In an average January, I get 3 or 4 requests for killies. People seem to lose the ability to step outside and feel the sub zero winds. It's almost like they think fish and eggs can be sent as e-mail attachments.

 

[Back in the fold]

I like raising fish . I like seeing little fry grow and color up . I like looking at my fish and having the satisfaction that I was in on that . Gary’s right , you breed fish to learn about breeding fish and you don’t usually make money off it . I’m actually glad that there isn’t a profit motive or it might not be as much fun . The real fun for me and the satisfaction is giving fish away free .