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Sophia's minifish breeding log - vid update p12


Sophia

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  • 1 month later...

so anyway .... make yourself a cup of tea :cofn: ...

After all this I acquired a male and female gardneri nigerianus gold killifish. Knowing that they were not young fish I thought I'd give it a go anyway.

After a week or 2 the male died from unknown issues. (see kilifish with fungus thread)

A week or 2 after that the female stopped eating and started acting a little strange from time to time - occasional flashing, shaking her a head, yawning her mouth, staying near the filter almost all the time .... apparently seeing and being a little interested in food but not really going for it. Her outer body was fine and she was otherwise moving about in a healthy fashion. I thought maybe she had an internal parasite or that she was sick from something else unknown as I knew that her 2 male cousins from the previous same tank were also suffering/dying. I thought it possible she was weak because she was pining for company :dunno:

Left back in the old tank there was one male left, a humpback male and pretty large. He was eating fine and acting normal. Since there were now 1 male and 1 female left we decided I would take the humpback to live with the female and they could either die together and at least have company or hope for the best and they perk up.

So about a week ago I brought him home to live with his new/old missus, dosed the tank with aviverm (I had forgotten I had it :facepalm: ) and now about 5 or so days later after a water change the female has started eating again and hanging out in the food area when I come near. :bounce:

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  • 3 weeks later...

I still have CPDs, also have emerald dwarf rasbora/danio, and now have dwarf and mosquito rasbora, though couldn't get any of the last 3 to lay me some eggs. I did breed some CPDs but as you can read I ruined the experiment as it was getting off the ground. I will have a spare tank shortly, in which I hope to get a few more CPD fry and then I hope to have some gold australe killies in there. Also now have 5 gold mountain minnows too. :happy2:

All of them love to eat the golden pearls you sent me :thup:

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I was reading your post and it appears your inpatients was not helping you.

I did some breeding experiments as to the best way to breed CPD's when they were first imported.

Observations of group breeding was the spare males would disturb a pair in the act of spawning and much less egg per female were layed.

This is common in the Danio/Dario family however as they normally throw 100's or even 1000's of eggs it does not matter to the home breeder.

Pair Breeding would result in eggs on the second day after being placed in the spawning tank, never the

first and the most eggs ever laid was 48.

If 2 females were used the second female may breed on the third day but most often she would not spawn.

The female then needed conditioning for 10 to 14 days, feed them mostly Micro worms as in good water they live for many days meaning the fish could feed when and as they please. There was no gravel as it made things easier - Oh I kept the pair separate when conditioning.

They were breed in very small tanks 300x200x200mm. I the tank was a small sponge filter a spawning trap with a clump of moss on top.

SpawningTrap.jpg

Yes that's stainless steal but you can use plastic mesh from spotlight in the cross stitch section ( use the largest mesh)

I breed Microraspora maculata ( dwarf raspora ) in a similar fashion.

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that's cool, and I have most or all of that stuff available.

How much of a clump of moss do you mean? How much of the tank was available for swimming?

All my CPDs have a diet high in microworms and they are normally pretty fat.

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The're small fish so just a tufted hand full will work.

Most of the tank is available for swimming.

Keep the trap as low in aquarium as possible or use the system you thought of in the beginning but with mesh.

Don't move the Eggs !!!

Move the fish,

I think Ira said spawn often and he was right, better fertility is achieved with fresh eggs in most species.

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Yes,

I assume it a small plastic tank with the bottom cut out, if the fish can't get caught in the mesh it should work for a pair.

Cover the base with moss, don't worry about swimming space.

Most of these species come from heavily planted waters, I know this for sure in the case of the CPD's. the area got destroyed by fish collectors.

I didn't mention I paint all my tanks black as clear Glass can cause reflection problems/scare the breeders.

Because they come from heavily planted areas low light can help/black paint

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it's the lunchbox from the beginning of the thread and it is about half as wide as the 25 litre tank it can sit in.

I can boost the darkness by putting moss around the outside of the box.

the mesh lets eggs through but is too small for fish

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Update Tank 1 - 5 gold/sunset mountain minnows, 2 males and 3 females.

Acclimatised very quickly and have been eating like hogs.

I made them a bushy end for nookie and egg laying, and made an area for feeding that would be easy to clean. They spend time in both places and have learnt to feed off the bottom which is like a mirror so was confusing for them to start with. They appear to be doing all the right things so fingers crossed I see some fry one day.

IMG_1436.jpg

IMG_1437.jpg

IMG_1438.jpg

Update Tank 2 - 1 pair of CPDs in the breeding box. I picked my young male who has very dark marking in his tail and the best female I could catch.

I dropped the water level as far as I could without leaving the filter out of the water and put some moss 'wallpaper' around the edges to give a bit of privacy.

Will see how many eggs and fry I can get out of these 2 before my next project arrives....

IMG_1435.jpg

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CPD pair 1 have finished doing their time in the breeding box and pair 2 have moved in. Well I think they are a pair, sometimes hard to tell if the male tail fin is not extremely dark. No eggs on the tank floor yet.

To reduce the water level water can I lay the sponge filter on it's side? I presume it will still work ??

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Update Tank 1 - 5 gold/sunset mountain minnows, 2 males and 3 females.
I hope I didn't cause the start of mountain minnow obsession?

Not seen any eggs or fry from mine yet but with the bullies in there I probably wont, may just move them (or just a male or two and a few females) into the new planted tank to see if any thing happens

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the other day I did put the sponge filter on it's side and dropped the water level in CPD tank 1 further

still no eggs, at least not that I can see, and have just swapped out another pair. This time I swapped their moss clump too in case of eggs hiding in there. Not likely but :dunno:

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  • 2 weeks later...

Over the last few days I took the breeding box out, added another pair of CPDs and left them to it for a couple of nights.

Then put them back in the main tank and now I check for fry every moment of the day :smln:

Still no fry in tank 1 gold mountain minnows but there the females are very fat. The plants are growing pretty well in there so maybe I will see some once the cover is more dense.

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I have found that WCMM fry when just hatched seem to sit on the glass of the tank facing straight up towards the surface of the water, usually around 60mm from the surface rather than swimming around in open water.

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  • 2 weeks later...

moved the gold mountain minnows into Tank 2 that was converted to cold water and into the breeding box with some of their original tank water.

They are not amused. They want to know where their plants have gone and why they are in jail. :o

No eggs overnight. If I don't get any tomorrow I will be wondering if I should spend some cash on some metal mesh instead, maybe they are not falling through the holes. Seems odd that these would also not be having any eggs fall through the holes. The gaps are easily 3mm square. bah

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