I would like to share with you my experience of breeding Celestial Pearl Danios.

Three months ago I set-up two 30 litre tanks for breeding Celestial Pearl Danios.

Each tank has twelve fish, a mixture of males and females. The bottom of the breeding tanks have a mesh grid for the eggs to fall through. The eggs do not adhere to plants very well as they are not very sticky. Male Danios love to eat the eggs, so you have to have a heavily planted tank or else a mesh grid for the eggs to fall through which the males can not reach.

I am syphoning about 15-20 fry a week. Some weeks very few or none at all. Either they do not lay many eggs at once, or else the males are eating the eggs that have not fallen through the mesh and that have adhered to the Christmas Moss. The tanks are heavily planted with Christmas Moss (Vesicularia montagnei).

To collect the eggs or fry I shake the Christmas Moss to release any eggs. I syphon the bottom of the tanks (under the mesh grid)twice and week, and transfer any eggs or fry to a 25 litre tank where the fry are raised until they are approximately 5mm in length.

I feed the breeding Danios flake food, mosquito larvae and daphnia.

The temperature of the breeding tanks is set at 22C and use a sponge filter. I have no artificial lighting on the breeding tanks, and I do a 20% water change once a week.

The eggs and fry are raised in a planted 25 litre tank, sponge filter, with no artificial lighting, temperature 22C. The fry are feed twice daily with micro-worms or Wardleys Small Fry Liquid Food. Since there are many different batches of fry in the same tank I also feed brine shrimp to the larger fry.

How I am breeding these fish is not due to any former experience in breeding fish in the past. It is rather I think more to a lot of good luck and reading how others have succeeded to breed Celestrials. So far what I am doing has been successful and I have a approximately 50+ fry.

Well done, they are beautiful fish. I have 6 myself and will give it a go as soon as I have my second fish room setup.

Good stuff kiwi :bounce: :bounce:

well done and thank you for sharing

do you have lighting on the breeding tanks or are they blacked out?

adodge. The tanks are set-up in the garage and are placed about 2 metres away from a large window, where they get filtered morning sun.

nice going thanks for sharing good info there. i have also read that doing 50% water changes every day or every other day will increase the amount of fry you get.

Thanks for the info about the 50% water changes.

The breeding Celestials are over 2 years old and maybe if they were younger fish they may lay more eggs!

The first batch of fry are now reaching breeding size, so it will be interesting to see if they lay a larger quantity of eggs.

I have found like all danio's a pair in the act of spawning can/will be disturbed by other males.

As Cpd's only produce 40-50 eggs(I have never had more then 48 eggs produce per spawn) a spawn, it will (unlike other danio's which produce well over 100eggs) seriously affect spawning success.

My best results have always been using pairs in 12lt tanks(200x300x200high).

If feed bbs and other live foods a female would spawn at least every 10-14 days (breeding traps were used, with a small clump of spawning moss above the middle of trap).

I had major *&$% hit the fan many months a go now and lost close to 100 coloured up fry + adults breeder. I've only just replaced my breeders.

How do you tell the difference between male and females, if possible?

hey stu fantastic info thanks mate.. i actually just read in a book it's best to spawn danios in pairs so that reaffirms that

hope this helps malawiman:

Cheers Luke, looks like I've got 5 males and one female.

Anyone have some for sale please let me know.

Anyone in Chch with these, cool wee fish.

Thanks for the information about breeding pairs only.

Last weekend I collected 50+ fry in my setup, so while it is working for me with more than one pair in a heavily planted tank I am happy.

That's the thing with spawning fish.

"If it works and your happy > no need to change<"

Good Luck

Due to my inattention, I have lost a large number of very small fry from a later spawing to the larger fry from my first spawning. It seems that larger Celestials eat the newly hatched fry.

I am now seperating the larger fry into another tank from the newly hatched.

My project of breeding Celestial Pearl Danios is still on-going with average success which I am happy with.

I have refreshed my breeding stock from last years fry and I expect good results sometime next year.

Here are a couple of pictures one of a breeding pair the other is of a few days old fry.

That is one beautiful fish.

How do they do in water that is 30 deg C?

I want.....

Good luck with the CPDs, hope all goes well 8)

Personally I have never kept them at 30C. My fish are kept between 24-26C.

nice work good to see you're still at it

30C is way to hot for them, they like it in the high teen's to mid 20's.

I found they were at their best in the low 20's - (21-23C).

Keep up the breeding KIWI

How do they do in water that is 30 deg C?

Hmm, I couldn't see anywhere that kiwi said 30 degrees....

The temperature of the breeding tanks is set at 22C ...

Personally I have never kept them at 30C. My fish are kept between 24-26C.

Anyway, in last October's PFK magazine, there was a detailed article about breeding these and they also said 22 deg C so it sounds like you are doing everything right kiwi. Apparently the author kept them outside until winter (the the outdoor tank got down to 8 degrees C!) and when he put them in the warm breeding tank they immediately began spawning like crazy. Great article btw.

no jen. i wanted to know IF they do well in 30 deg so i can get some for my tank

sad for me though.

Oh! :lol: