Has anyone bred Australian Rainbows?

[Aftaburn]

I'm setting up to breed Dwarf Neon Australian Rainbows (Melanotaenia praecox).

I would like to know the merits of various meathods of doing this if anyone has bred them before.

I have 3 males and 3 females.

[Alan]

Check the Breeding Link of the forum

You can find all the ones (breeders) that belong to the FNZAS that have scored with these little sweeties

Alan

[Bilbo]

My wife and I had about 10 of these hatch last night and by this morning there are about 50. They are her favorite fish because of colours. She did all the reading and set the tank up herself and was really excited when she saw the little ones swimming around last night. The lay a few eggs a day over a week or so and the fry hatch at about the same rate about a week later. There is tons of info on them around. We used 1 male and 3 females in a 10 ltr tank with tons of java moss and marbles over a dark base.

[Lucid]

What colours are these generally.

I have one that is blue with red fins and is a bueaty of a fish, but only know of it as a Dwarf Neon rainbow, not even sure what sex.

Is a dwarf neon the same as a dwarf neon australian?

[Midas]

Melanotaenia praecox actually come from Indonesia so they shouldn't be technically called 'Australian' neon dwarf rainbows. They are normally just called neon dwarf rainbows, so yes Ballistic it is the same fish.

We bred these recently without doing anything special. Just kept and heated the water from water changes (including the detris picked up with the gravel vac) and transfered the fry that appeared over the next week from that water into a raising tank.

Hardest part is feeding them as the fry are very small. I tried a few different things including very finely ground up dry food, commercial fry food, green water etc until they were big enough to eat brine shrimp.

[Aftaburn]

I have various options for housing these guys & have about a week to prepare before my 400mmx400mmx1200mm tank comes free (4 foot).

Ballistic check out the link.

http://www.aquarticles.com/articles/bre ... wfish.html

Alan... I found references to several species of Rainbows having been bred in 2002.

It seems some of the earlier info I was given on these guys is incorrect I had been told they produce up to 600 at a spawning.

I was planning on using a tank divider in a 4 foot tank to split male & female & condition them on bloodworm. This tank has a 1200 litre per hour canister filter (ex large cichlid system, cichlids have sold waiting on new tank to be setup next week) so I was not going to use it for very young fry rather for adults & large fry as space & fish size demands.

I have 2 spare 150watt heaters which I had intended using in spawning / rearing tanks the first of which I'm considering putting on a 3 drawer steel filing cabinet (hope its strong enough) which would likely be dimensions 450mmx450mmx450mm (external dimensions) max weight = 100kg? (around 90 litre probably top off at 75 litres).

I'm not sure if 150watt per tank this size will suffice nor of the weight glass I need (I had been thinking 6.5mm or 8mm glass depending on availability & cost).

I have a sponge filter but was also considering using back half (glue glass divider in back of tank 5 inch deep with novaflow filter tray) subgravel in tanks housing slightly larger fry.

I have space for another similar sized tank then space gets tricky but I may be able to stretch to 4 tanks total for rainbows (4 foot + 3x 2 foot tanks approx + 400 litre community tank).

Spawning tanks... not sure what to use yet (I dont have much Java Moss) but had been considering a gause of some sort about 2 inches off the bottom (possibly stainless steel mesh), as I've yet to build these I should be able to integrate brackets etc...

Another option is plastic potscrubs but these could be a problem to remove without eggs after adults have been removed.

Glass bottom, sponge filter, spawning grate, heater... nothing else in tanks... I can include floating plant but have little else suitable plant to use in spawning tanks(except small clumps of Java Fern). The 4 foot tank will likely be a partitioned planted display tank eventually.

Must I include plants for these guys to be happy & spawn well? They're used to a large heavily planted tank.

I've got microworms started, brine shrimp to set up & a variety of other fry foods but not live possibly I will need infusoria cultures if I can get some started.

The aim is to try to produce 500 - 1000 youngsters ready to go every 6 months & possibly breeding panda corydoras along side along with bristlenose. Open to ideas on what else to produce. The long term goal is it needs to be able to pay rent on a room for me to get a larger flat & therefore more tanks ($150 per week per additional room)

I cannot have any more than another 3 small (5 total in flat, currently 2) tanks (this includes tank based live food raising systems as there are not enough power points or space).

Any thoughts?

[Alan]

When I have bred rains..

I've used java moss,

but I've also used the same mops as we have used in killifish breeding.

Another thing you could use is large Indian Ferns.

But have them floating,

they have a large amount of root structure to them.

You also need tiny food to get them passed their first few swimming days,

till they will confidently take BBS

Alan

[Melanotaenia]

aftaburn,

These guys are pretty easy. Either spawn the parents and then remove the eggs into another tank or put the parents in a breeding tank and then remove them after spawning. They need a spawning mop or plants (vallis, starwort) to spawn over. They like lots of plants so will be happier and more likely to spawn in a heavily planted tank. Sunlight is the key to spawning, so set the tank up where it will get a few hours of morning sunlight and you should have no probs. If that doesn't work then maybe seperate out the adults in different tanks and then recombine them and they'll be keen on 'scoring' the new arrivals. pH 6.5 - 7.0, water pretty soft ( < 40 mg/l). 2 females to one male or 3 female/2 male would be a good ratio. They do eat their eggs which is why I prefer the egg removal technique. Fry take about a week to hatch and I feed green water and microworms. There males are an amazing to watch while spawning with the 'headlight' thing though. They are slow growers taking about 6 months to reach sellable size. Feel free to spin me any more questions... 8)