At it again

Emptied my outside flow bin yesterday - only 5 male emeralds. Guess the females died before they spawned. Think I will stick to inside spawning them them from now on as they are one of the easier species I have to spawn.

Shutting down for winter now. Currently I have 1 cpd fry and 1 sawbwa fry that need to grow, wont try spawning anymore until September

 

Just a sawbwa fry that I moved from one of the top tanks in my breeding rack to one of the bottom tanks as my pump packed up. My spare pump isnt as powerful so it doesnt reach the top tanks.

 

So I got my breeding setup up and running again. Cleaned each of the 6 breeders, fixed the pump yesterday - had to superglue the impeller, put the pump in the sump today and its working great. I have ordered a spare impeller anyway because its always useful to have a spare somewhere. I am planning on letting the setup run for a few days, Friday I will connect the heater and hopefully saturday afternoon I will be moving some CPDs in for breeding.

 

Have you bred CPDs in the past?
Will be following

 

Yes, I have bred probably over a 1000. I do about 100 to 200 a year.

 

Moved in a dozen CPDs this afternoon. 6 males, 6 females. 2 pairs per tank. I looked for younger fish - I think my lower numbers from the last breeding season was due to me only really having older fish. Lets see how it goes

 

@MadHatter is looking for some

 

Day 1 and I have eggs. I found 7 in one of the three spawning containers and then looking though the moss another 5. There may have been more in the container, I didnt do an extensive search, I just gently rinsed the entire container into one of my fry grow out tanks. Here is a pic for what its worth, the eggs dont photograph well and are far easier to see in real life

 

Marked them in the photo - still doesnt help much. Next time I will take a pic on the moss - it should be easier to see

 

Found some more eggs tonight - about a dozen from 2 different tanks. Got a better pic of a few.

 

Yes, CPDs. I am not trying to breed anything else currently. Its willow moss, I prefer it over Java. Doesnt tangle as much as it far easier to get out of a tank that it has been in, it doesnt really stick to things as easily

 

Just an update - I have moved somewhere between 20 and 30 eggs into a fry tank, so far I have zero fry. I am wondering if it is the process of moving the eggs or the bare bottom glass tank, or even exposure to direct light which may be causing the eggs not to hatch. Usually I move the adults out and leave the eggs in the spawning container covered in moss - this works but is not very efficient. Now I am gently pouring the contents of each spawn container (removing the moss first) into a grow tank to try and concentrate the fry. I am going to start moving the eggs into a different tank from tomorrow - one that I have a layer of moss at the base and one that I keep the lights off for the duration of me adding eggs, so the only light it will get will be indirect.

 

Update on this -I am still getting lots of eggs, none are hatching. Took a sample of water to work - pH is 8.1, tds is 300 ppm. I am adding Organic Aqua water treatment to my WC water - 4 ml per 200 L so that is probably the tds. I think over the course of this week I should do multiple 20L rainwater WC and then remeasure the pH and TDS on Friday. I usually breed some CPDs in my outside water tank which is only rainwater, maybe the water is just not right for the eggs to be fertilized / hatch.

 

On Monday night I replaced the water in all six breeding tanks with rainwater, I left the sump with the old water in it. This works out to about a 80 % WC. Just measured the pH and conductivity - pH is 7.8, tds is 140 ppm. Will move fish in tomorrow night and try again.

Just for interest my rainwater is pH 7.4 and the tds is 120 ppm so the final mixture is pretty close to this. Also my rainwater is in a 1000L white flowbin so its green as well - can only be beneficial to the fry.

 

So still no fry coming out here. I have moved eggs a week ago, no fry, I have moved my margarine containers on Friday last week, no fry, and I have moved the adults out the tank like have usually do on this past tuesday, no fry yet. Additionally I have given 2 pairs to a friend, she is going to see if she can hatch eggs. this was last weekend, her first batch of eggs got eaten by a cory fry, she hasnt looked for more eggs to date. If I get nothing by next weekend I am going to replace the entire tank with RO water (about 120 L) and try again. I am really a bit stumped here.

 

Still no success so today I decided to take everything out, clean everything and then retry - until I found loads of planaria in the moss. Treating the tank for planaria now, pretty sure its them eating the eggs. Will try spawning again next week once I have made sure they are no longer

 

I have now tried 4 tanks with 2 pairs in each, I have gotten loads of eggs. The first batch I poured into one ice cream container and floated in the tank - no fry. The second batch I put all 4 spawning containers into 1 tank - tonight I found 3 fry. Then the last batch I left each container in its own tank and moved the adults out - no fry yet but this batch is 4 days behind the second batch so there is still hope. If I get very low fry yields I think I am going to go the RO:tap water route next weekend. By then every egg that was going to hatch would have.