At it again

Hi everyone,

I decided to breed my celestial pearl danios again. Caught 2 pairs, moved them to breeding tanks on Sunday. Last night I moved 25 eggs from the 1 pair and 09 eggs from the other pair into a fry raising tank. I left the adults in their spawning tanks so I am sure there will be more eggs tonight/tomorrow/thursday. Not sure how well my success rate will be as its a new breeding rack setup and its only been running for about 3 weeks. I am also unsure how well it will keep temperature in winter when things really start getting cold as its a drip system with a sump. Guess time will tell.

 

Nice @TheGrissom. Good to see other people also pushing the limits by raising fry in the winter. 3 weeks is long enough for fry, imo. No big bio load and bioload will increase as they grow but filtration will also improof.

Are you using spawning mops? Can't you heat the room where the tanks are in?

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Hi @pierreschoonraad.

The tanks are in my garage - it doesnt get that cold in there. Also being coastal we dont really get below 10 degrees often. I am more concerned about the heat distribution from the sump to the grow tanks as they are all on drip rather than flow so as to not hurt the fry.

I am not using spawning mops. I am using a small spar margarine container with java moss inside.

I am not worried about bio load of the tanks. I have a few java ferns and moss in each tank. As the micro organisms establish they fry should be able to find their own food. When I breed sawbwas they are in anubais tanks that have been running for years - I dont have to do anything for the fry. I just think in 3 or 4 months once the plants are established I will probably get better survival rates. Usually I am at about 50 %. When its a small spawn size I only lose 1 or 2 fry, when its quite large the majority dont make it. But this could be due to micro-organisms available as food in the tank. Microworms are too large and they really only start taking these at 3 weeks.

 

10 degrees is quite cold for fry although Danios should be fine with it.

Have you tried using green water for them?

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I havent tried green water. I will this time. I have a pine apple and a strawberry that i am growing in douw egberts jars that have green water in them. Will siphon some of this and see what happens. I have got a vinegar eel culture going and am planning on producing another 4 cultures in a month once my apple cidar vinegar is ready. These should also help I think.

 

That will defnitly help. I have seen with my rainbows what big differance green water makes as I can only feed 2x a day. Now they have food for at least 12 hours

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Just had a look. No more eggs. Some of the eggs that I moved have started to fungus and go white. Others are still clear and looking good. The white ones were probably not fertilized.

 

Found 2 fry that have just hatched on the bottom of the tank. I am sure there are more but not easy to see among the moss. No more eggs from the 2 pairs but if they are anything like my Emerald Rasbora they will have eggs every 4 or 5 days.

 

Fry went free swimming last night. There are about 15 of them. Feeding vinegar eels and green water twice a day. The 2 breeding pairs have still not produced more eggs - if I get nothing by Thursday night I will replace them with a different 2 pairs on Friday and see how it goes.

As a bonus I have been moving 2 pairs of Sawbwas around my anubais tanks - found a fry in one tank and 2 fry in a different anubais tank this morning. All were clinging to the glass. Will just let them stay in there until they are big enough to move and then I will repeat the process of moving the sawbwas around again.

 

Thats awesome @TheGrissom , congratulations

 

Well done. Sometimes the funny things, we do with our fish, gives unexpected good results

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I have tried spawning the sawbwas like my cpds with no success. Previously I have spawned them in the anubais tanks so I was trying this again. I dont get many fry this way but a few is better than none. Will see what comes of it but if history is anything to go by I can expect about 5 fry per anubais tank (of which I have 3) although I have left the adults in longer than I have previously.

 

A photo of my breeding setup:
Christmas moss on the left, Java moss in the middle and Susswassertang on the right. Top 3 tanks have needle leaf Java fern while the bottom 3 have anubias.

 

Double post

 

Not sure why my pics arent showing - will try again sometime.

I still have about 20 CPD fry that are now 10 days old. I dont think I have lost any so far but its always hard to tell. They have grown considerably and I am planning on trying Hikaris first bites on them tonight and to switch from vinegar eels to micro worms. I will still give green water as I have a lot of it.

Looks like I have about 10 to 15 sawbwa fry spread over 3 tanks. These are well established anubias tanks so they should be fine although I am feeding them micro worms twice a day. My vinegar eel supply is down to a minimum now so I am stopping feeding them to give them time to recover the culture.

 

The fry started taking bs last night (or rather I started feeding bs last night). Feeding is not an issue anymore as I am also feeding them Hikari first bites which they are visibly eating. Still about 20 or so fry. Since I started I have only found 1 dead one about a week ago.

 

Very nice. Still waiting for the foto's

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I will post photos tomorrow. Getting some flame moss, pearl moss and weeping moss tonight hopefully so each breeding tank will have its own type of moss. Need to give the front glass a clean though as some of them are quite algaefied

 

Update time - I have lots of sawbwa fry now. In my grow tank I have 15 all over 1 cm. Across 3 spawning tanks I estimate about another 15 and I moved a pair of adults into an anubias tank about a week back. Will remove them in a week and see what comes from there.

 

Forgot to speak about the cpds - there are about 25 of them, all looking very healthy and growing well. They have started colouring up now. 20 of them are spoken for already, I am keeping the remaining 5. Their new owners will be collecting them at the end of the month. They will be about 4 months old then.