To Keep Trying to Breed or not?

[MuddyWaters]

Hi all- I'm getting discouraged with my efforts to breed. I've tried several times to breed green fire tetra (Aphyocharax rathbuni) with no luck. Also tried several times to breed CPDs with no luck. The fish themselves are all healthy and happy, but either they're celibate or I can't find the eggs before they get eaten. I am also keeping crystal red shrimp and tangerine shrimp but neither seem to want to breed.

On the other hand, I can't stop the kribensis from breeding, or the black bar endlers or the red something-or-other endlers. My neocaridina (cherry) do well and Oh- my black mollies breed well enough where some of the fry live to adulthood without getting eaten (my big tank is FULL of plants, so the kribensis and the mollies (yes, the mollies live in a relatively soft water tank- AND breed LOL) fry can find places to hide). However, I'm not TRYING to breed any of these, they just manage to breed and keep their fry alive on their own.

I'm wondering how many times y'all had to try different fish before getting one to work? Maybe I just need to keep trying different fish. Maybe I'm trying ones that are too hard (although I heard that CPDs are super-easy....).

I have a trio of platinum bubble mollies with little blue eyes that look like gemstones. I'm going to try and breed them. I'm guessing live bearers in general should be much easier and heck, the black mollies bred without any help from me and in a tank with water softer than they generally like (the water here is super soft, but I add KH booster to ensure I get CO2 in the tank and I squirt a little GH booster in there sometimes, so it's not all that soft after all that and the fertilizer for plants).

I really want to try an egg laying fish. I'd really really like to breed tetras. I might start with glowlight or ember tetra- I've read they're easier than others, but I don't know.

What has your experience been, especially early on? Do you sometimes get discouraged? Should I keep trying different fish or quadruple/quintuple down on the ones I have to try different methods/conditions, etc?

 

[Innesfan]

Should I keep trying different fish or quadruple/quintuple down on the ones I have to try different methods/conditions, etc?

That depends on what your methods are. Are you separating the tetras and danios by sex (I assume CPD means Celestial Pearl Danios--if not, jump in with a correction) and conditioning them before setting up a pair. Or are you not using pairs and attempting a larger group?

 

[GaryE]

I'm a stubborn cuss with these things. The most attempts I've had with one species is 17. That was a super blackwater morph of Apistogramma agassizii - not usually a hard fish but I had met up with a form of it probably on the road to becoming a new species in response to an extreme environment. I just kept reducing the water hardness with every failure, til I finally got a lovely bunch of young, and knowledge of how to breed the young when they grew.

With Nanochromis transvestitus, it took 9 tries, but what I learned seems to work for a bunch of related species.

Tetras are another issue. I actually have good records on my last year. I made a number of attempts. Cardinals, two for three tries, but not many. Pristella maxillaris 1/1. Hyphessobrycon sp red cherry, zero for 3 attempts. HYphessobrycon peugotti, one tiny success in two tries. Nannostomus beckfordi, 0/1, but they were old and that was a shot in the dark. Neolebias cf trewevasae - zero for 3.

I expect failure the first time, but delight in success. To me, breeding tetras is always a coup. Cichlids are easy. Many kilies aren't that hard, though they take prep. Barbs lean to the easier side. But tetras are never to be taken for granted.

The recipe is somewhere in here, and with every failure, I note and adjust at least one of these elements.
water hardness
spawning substrate
conditioning diet
triggers (sometimes breeding is seasonal, sometimes you learn how to get them to spawn. It isn't automatic)
source (wild caught tetras, as healthier fish, tend to breed better than farmed ones)
tank size
egg protection (are they easy to eat after spawning? They shouldn't be)
light (many tetras have eggs that can't stand any light, and fry that need darkness for the first stretch of their lives)
when to start feeding, and what.

I'm sure there are other factors others can add. I'm drinking my morning coffee while typing. But it is a puzzle that is dynamic, and fights back. The more unnatural our tanks, set ups and practices are, the harder it is to get these highly adapted creatures to cooperate with us. Every species is different, but every aquarist who decides to breed more difficult fish needs to figure out how to meet the fishes' needs with his/her aquarist resources.

Sitting and looking at a tank is relaxing. Trying to crack the puzzle of how to breed fish is engaging.

 

[seangee]

Sitting and looking at a tank is relaxing. Trying to crack the puzzle of how to breed fish is engaging.

And Google can be most unhelpful. When I looked up "breeding Trigonostigma espei" (Beause mine were spawning and I have had fry in the past) the first article I came across assured me with great authority that these were bubble nesters and mouth brooders

More seriously @GaryE - how tough were the cardinals and does dark mean pitch dark? Most of the fish I have now could be self sustaining except for the cardinals. Well not the BN, who is a singleton, but based on the last one I had she will possibly outlive me. I am down to 4 nannostomus marginatus so suspect that I will have to intervene to get more. I have had fry appear in the community tank over the years, but very few - mostly I suspect because there are just too many greedy predators in there (like cardinals and cories )

 

[Colin_T]

Feed the fish 3-5 times a day for at least 2 (preferably 4) weeks before breeding so they are in prime health.

Do lots of big water changes and gravel cleaning and filter cleaning when feeding more often.

Separate sexes for 5-7 days (depending on species). Most only need 5 days apart. Then put a pr or group into a breeding tank that has a thin layer of gravel/ sand, lots of plants, an air operated sponge filter, picture on the back, coverglass on top, the correct water chemistry for the species, and give them morning sunlight. They usually breed the morning after they are added to the tank.

If you breed tetras, rasboras, Corydoras and other soft water fishes, make sure the GH is 0ppm or as close to it as possible. Have the pH below 7.0 and add some tannins.

Make sure you only have one species per tank if you are trying to breed them. Having several species means one might be eating the eggs of the other. Some fish can be bred in colonies and don't eat the eggs, others should be spawned in pairs (1 male & 1 female) so the other fish that aren't breeding don't eat the eggs.

Raise or lower the temperature a couple of degrees before breeding.

More info at following link.

Back to Basics when Breeding Fish

STARTING OUT Make sure you have a pair, (1 male + 1 female). There is nothing worse than spending your hard-earned dollars buying a couple of fish to try and breed and ending up with a pair of fish of the same sex. Let's face it, to reproduce fish you need a male and a female. Two males won't do...

www.fishforums.net

 

[GaryE]

The cardinals shocked me. They were easier than I expected. I used a 5 gallon, with about 65 tds water, deeply peat stained at 26 degrees. The bottom was covered with plastic fake plant mats, cut to fit the tank bottom snugly. Eggs could fall though but adults faced a challenge getting to them. There was also java moss and dead spaghnum moss in there.I had an aged box filter running.

Females were conditioned for a week on their own, with artemia, and whiteworms. I timed it for December, since Dec to Feb is the natural breeding season. My fish were wild caught from 2 different shipments.

My next attempt will be off season, just to see.

The tank was pitch black. It had black cardboard around 3 sides, and a black towel on top hanging over the front glass.

I started feeding when the fry were due to be freeswimming, and fed blind. The tank stayed dark for 10 days.

I think I killed a lot of fry, and I have to work on that. I got 4 one try and 7 the next. I'll use a larger tank next time out. I'll also have softer water. All 11 young are in my shoal now, looking fine and looking set to spawn. Growth was very fast.

When I bred an equally small number of glowlight tetras, I did everything the same but the length of darkness. I kept the tank dim, but was able to see that I had larvae on the glass and to time the microfoods better.

I'm learning. As usual, I'll say every species can be different.

 

[Innesfan]

I am down to 4 nannostomus marginatus so suspect that I will have to intervene to get more. I have had fry appear in the community tank over the years, but very few - mostly I suspect because there are just too many greedy predators in there (like cardinals and cories )

As you have observed, N. marginatus -- in all of its forms, and there are many, which I suspect the splitters are about to reclassify as individual species--are ready spawners and will produce fry in communal settings. If you put them in a tank of their own with lots of plant cover, their numbers will steadily increase especially if the ph is in the low 6s or below. I have found this true of every species of Nannostomus I have kept--which is all but 3 of the current 18/20 species (depending on whose science you subscribe to)-- with the exception of N. espei which, in my expereince, prefers to be set up in pairs. One of several ways N. espei is unique among Nannostomus. That said, the various forms of N. marginatus have always been the most reliably productive.

 

[Oldspartan]

Don't know why. Made me think of this. I play this, (and about a doxen similar), when I get lost or frustrated with a project.

 

[GaryE]

As far as research goes, I am getting the impression AI is starting to bite. I find that google is giving the answer to other people's questions, and not the precise question I've asked anymore. It tells me what it thinks I wanted to ask, since everyone else asked it.
Ask about Trigonostigma and it'll give you Trichogaster. I mean people ask about gouramis more often! And the names are close enough. Just as my Windows 11 laptop drives me crazy wrongly thinking it knows what I want to do, AI seems to decide what I want to think. It also thinks we're idiots.
I think general searches are going to be flawed for at least a while, and if we're breeding unfamiliar fish, you're better with info from your peers, at Seriously Fish, or here, over wider ranging searches.

 

[seangee]

As you have observed, N. marginatus -- in all of its forms, and there are many, which I suspect the splitters are about to reclassify as individual species--are ready spawners and will produce fry in communal settings. If you put them in a tank of their own with lots of plant cover, their numbers will steadily increase especially if the ph is in the low 6s or below. I have found this true of every species of Nannostomus I have kept--which is all but 3 of the current 18/20 species (depending on whose science you subscribe to)-- with the exception of N. espei which, in my expereince, prefers to be set up in pairs. One of several ways N. espei is unique among Nannostomus. That said, the various forms of N. marginatus have always been the most reliably productive.

Maybe its time. For a long time I have said my interest is in keeping fish rather than breeding them. The last time I bought pencilfish was in Aug 2019 and in a community tank it is inevatible that the population will decline over time. I was always OK with replenishing when needed but perhap its time to change my approach. I recently downsized form 4 to 2 tanks. 3 of these were regionally themed and the 4th was what I called my macro nano community. So my larger tank (200l) is now a melange of peaceful fish and I have a 15G flex which hosts a group of ember tetras and shrimp. This thread made me toy with the idea of using the Flex as a rotating replenishment tank - I still don't want to breed in numbers but I also want to stop having to buy fish so will only breed what I need.

But this tank has MTS and getting rid of them is way more challenging than getting rid of duckweed . So I'm wondering if I should just set up a small dedicated tank - say 25-30l for breeding and raising fry, or just go with the Flex.
Opinions welcome, I'm not looking to maximise yield but would be disapponted if all the egges were eaten.

 

[GaryE]

Large yields can happen, but they are rarer than people think. We are often not equipped to make them happen, and that's fine. I'm not going to stock all the local pet stores and outcompete corporate farms in Asia with hundreds of skilled employees, ideal water and almost zero energy costs. My little tanks in an insulated garage with snow drifting around the outside walls and early darkness for a chunk of the year aren't going to upset Singapore.

People would be surprised at the effort it takes to get a spawn that becomes 10 or 15 egg layers, with the more demanding species. Last winter I needed 'clean', disease free companion fish for some dwarf Cichlids, so I bred some Pristella maxillaris and raised 40 easily. Getting a group from an easy tetra like that is one thing. When my pencils get large enough, I expect they'll be more of a challenge. So far, cardinals have been difficult, but I know as long long as I can be content with adding 5-10 young a shot, they'll work. My numbers will increase as I become more skilled, or lucky.

It's more likely we breed to replenish stocks of fish we like. If we're lucky, we get to break some of the farm disease cycles. The fish we buy have the problems they have, but fry we raise from eggs are our fish, and if they're stunted or short lived, that's on us.

In 1992 at an auction, I got two small killies that promptly died. A few weeks later, I found another pair at the home of a fishkeeper who was moving, and bought them. Research showed them to be extremely rare in the hobby and in nature, and that they were reputed to be hard to breed. I worked hard on them, bred some, then bred some, and am now still breeding that species and that line. I still think they're beautiful, and am far from done with keeping them. I've never had hundreds, but slow and steady numbers. You can do the same with most fish.

 

[MuddyWaters]

That depends on what your methods are. Are you separating the tetras and danios by sex (I assume CPD means Celestial Pearl Danios--if not, jump in with a correction) and conditioning them before setting up a pair. Or are you not using pairs and attempting a larger group?

I've been attempting a larger group. Maybe I need to try the pair method. Group was easier

 

[MuddyWaters]

And Google can be most unhelpful. When I looked up "breeding Trigonostigma espei" (Beause mine were spawning and I have had fry in the past) the first article I came across assured me with great authority that these were bubble nesters and mouth brooders

Yeah Google can drive me crazy- there are so many 100% opposite opinions and, as you mention above, just crap someone seemed to come up with out of the blue- i wish books on aquarium keeping were not a dead thing... seems like when someone takes the time to write a book they get it right - at least with the current knowledgebase of the day.

 

[GaryE]

A huge issue with egg layers is the tastiness of eggs. In large groups, you sometimes get trailers behind the spawning pair wolfing down eggs as they go.

As someone who used to write aquarium books and articles, it's not taking the time. It's those peer editors that hovered in the background checking everything, and I mean everything, when you wrote for credible publishers. There was a lot of self published material too, with no controls. But the respected publishers hired Ichthyologists to pore over the texts to make sure they covered the state of knowledge to the time, and trust me, they didn't trust me or any other writer. They were demanding.
I loved it. It made me check everything I thought was true to avoid getting embarrassed.

With AI, I fear if 100 new aquarists repeat a myth, and one person who has conclusively busted the myth posts, it's the 100 errors that will be picked by the programs.

 

[MuddyWaters]

As you have observed, N. marginatus -- in all of its forms, and there are many, which I suspect the splitters are about to reclassify as individual species--are ready spawners and will produce fry in communal settings. If you put them in a tank of their own with lots of plant cover, their numbers will steadily increase especially if the ph is in the low 6s or below. I have found this true of every species of Nannostomus I have kept--which is all but 3 of the current 18/20 species (depending on whose science you subscribe to)-- with the exception of N. espei which, in my expereince, prefers to be set up in pairs. One of several ways N. espei is unique among Nannostomus. That said, the various forms of N. marginatus have always been the most reliably productive.

I love pencil fish- I have 6 I got from one of the club auctions. The breed I have is brown/gold with black stripe and light blue tips on some of the fins. ....let me see if I can find a pic... would these be a good candidate for a ham-fisted wannabe breeder like me?