What to breed?

[alanmin4304]

Or spawn them over a net so they can't eat them.

[Guest]

I was just going to breed them the same as the cardinals in that article. I've discovered that using a large piece of drift wood I have I can get the water down to about 7.2-7.4 and it turns the water browish which should be good for the neons.

[Jennifer]

If they are used to it they will be fine. My neons spawn all the time in ordinary Chch tap water which is about pH 7.4.

[alanmin4304]

The pH is less important than the timing with the breeding and the conditioning.

[caserole]

Around 8 years ago CAM i was breeding a number of tetra species and some very small species can produce 100's or even 1000's of eggs.

2 in particular that I remember were the black neon and the flame tetra.

I had a spawning of black neons that was so full of dead eggs I was going to bump it, in the end I decided to grow any fry I got - I ended up with 480 fish, and there would have been that many dead eggs to begin with.

As for the flames 1000's is absolutely true, I had them coming out my ears and then some.

P.s I was breeding neons in peat soaked rain water and what works for neons works for cardinals regarding the water KH - you only live down the road from me so if it worked for me it can work for you.

It's the lime and Magnesium that you need to avoid, carbon hardness is less of a problem.

I visited Brian and his set up was quite basic but it worked.

He did feed a lot of white worms to his fish to condition them.

[Guest]

I've decided to try the cardinals. I'm also considering neons or golden pencilfish. I want something thats going to lay one lot of large amount of eggs. I'm going to set up a 50ltr container with a heater fiter and a big bag of peat to store water in so I can do water change with similar PH and temp to the breeding tanks.

I have 3 tanks that are 40x40x26 that I can use to breed in. I will also have other tanks to grow the fry out in.

When you say flame tetra is this what you meant? I saw them at the lfs and they kind of look like a black widow crossed with a serpae.

[caserole]

Yes, that pic is a female.

You can easily grow 100 tetra's in a 600x300x300mm tank to a length of 2-2.5cm.

[caserole]

neons do not produce large numbers of eggs, 100 fry per spawn is very good.

Black widows are prolific as well.

[Guest]

Ok so today I bought some neons to breed I also got 2 female black widows to breed with my male and I also got 6 mature leopard danios cause they reminded me of brown trout and were super fast and active. So thats what I'll be attempting to breed. I'm only expecting the neons t be hard but hopefully I'll have heaps of babys soon.

[caserole]

I would only breed the leopard danio's a pair at a time, unless of cause you would like 1000 + fry to grow :lol:

Neons can be both hard and easy.

They were the first species I deliberately spawned when I was 15.

Of cause I did not know the eggs were light sensitive. :roll:

The trick, other then the correct set up is to find 2 fish that are compatible.

An old timer I knew used to bred neons by the 100's back when that art was new.

He knew that if he put particular pairs together he would always get a successful spawn, swap the pairs around and they may fail.

They don't pair up but it's not like Danio's - any male or female may not work.

Don't over condition the neons and spawn them regularly, always use young fish - they breed easier.

[Guest]

Okay so I'm planning on using about 2cm peat on the bottom of the tanks for the black widows and the neons and marbles for the danios.

Is there any way to figure out if a pair of neons is compatible or is it just swap them around and try. I was planning to put 2 pairs of neons in the breeding tank.

I'm planning on conditioning all the fish in the same tank for about 10 days then seperate all the male and females of all species to another tank fpr another 10 -14 days and then when I want to breed them set up the pairs of specific species in there own tank.

Also do black widows breed best in pairs or should I put the 1 male and the 2 females together when I want to breed them.

[caserole]

You don't need peat on the bottom for them, just peat soaked water, but they are egg eater so a trap of one type or another is advised.

Marbles or gravel is fine for the Danio's.

It can be hard to see the eggs if they spawn in the middle of the tank, I would suggest placing the spawning moss or mops next to the glass so you can see the eggs below the marbles.

Neons - no, it is hit and miss, if the fish spawn but the eggs are dead, condition them again and spawn - neon that are not compatible will not spawn at all.

Just use large and lots of mops for the Widows, that worked really well for me. set them up to breed on the week end so you can remove the pair once they have finished spawning to avoid eggs being eaten. Use pairs.

The male can only pay attention to one female at a time and the other one will be eating eggs.

One month to condition the for mentioned fish is twice as long as it should take - they can breed every 2 weeks - if feed right.