New breeders need some advice!

[Alistriwen]

Hi all, long time reader, first time poster .

Recently my roomie and I decided that as a hobby we'd like to start breeding some tropical fish. I had done it when I was a kid, but only bred guppies, and a few platies, which are easy, and was never successful in raising a large percentage of my fry.

We went to our lfs and a very knowledgeable salesman helped us out with getting our tank cycled, picking some easy plants and chosing some first go breeders. He gave us a wad of free java moss and reccomended some Rosy Barbs ( Puntius (Barbus) conchonius ) and because my roommate was keen on seeing livebearing fish bear live young some really gorgeous black swordtail platies.

We have 4 of the barbs (2 male, 2 female) and 3 of the swordtails (1 male, 2 female) living in a 30 gallon tank. I have some pictures but they are a bit dark so I will post some brighter ones after I take them tomorrow. Currently, we have a 10 gallon tank cycling that we want to use for spawning / fry bearing which has a small fry net floating in it.

We are looking for anyone with experience breeding any of the two varieties of fish especially the barbs to get some advice on the best way to breed the fish and rear their fry. We also had some general questions that maybe any of the pros out there can help us with.

We were wondering firstly about feeding. Our barbs are far more aggressive feeders than our platies. It doesnt take very long for the barbs to pick up on the fact that there is food in the tank and start going for it. The platies often dont realize until it is all gone if they do at all and we have to feed more than we'd like so they have a fair chance. The food we give them is a high nutrient, hormone free growth food which alternately sinks and floats. The barbs are quicker at getting to both the sinking and floating pellets. Any advice?

We have a number of other questions but that is the most urgent and this post is already pretty long, so I will get to them later.


Thanks for your consideration, pics to come tomorrow.


and

 

[gomezladdams]

Id give the platies thier own tank if you want to see any fry.


good luck and have fun!

 

[Alistriwen]

Id give the platies thier own tank if you want to see any fry.


good luck and have fun!

Well we actually have a 10 gallon tank which we wanted to use to birth for our swordtails. Im pretty sure one or both of our females are pregnant from the store tank and we actually wanted to post some pictures to see if anyone knew how close they might be as they are quite black and there is no gravid spot visible, nor do we really know how big to expect them to get.

 

[Fish on Fire]

Yeah, the barbs will make short work of the baby platys. Live bearers are pretty easy to breed, just throw a male in with several females and you'll have some babies within a few months if not earlier. Just do water changes to incite spawning and keep the temp at 80 degrees. That's worked for me.

 

[Nabbig2]

You can't breed them succesfully with those barbs, no question.

 

[davidefc]

the platies will breed in the barb tank but the babys will be feeders straight away, use the ten gallon for the 2 preg platie and once given birth remove and put in the other tank or you could get yourself a breeding trap with a v when she gives birth she cannot eat them. as for the barbs they scatter eggs so you will have to put about 3 rows of marbles at the bottom as the will eat there eggs and remove the 2 and keep switching the pair so they dont get that nacked, to feed the fry i would use baby brine shrimp, liquid fry food and any other alredy made stuff as the is alot to use for food but these are the easyest and baby brine shrimp is the best for them i have raised fry with baby brine shrimp every day for about 6weeks with other bits and bobs and the difference with out using it is enormas it costs abit more but well worth it. Good luck breeding your barbs, you could if you progress pick up so cichlids like convicts and kribensis they are easly to breed and you can see the pair raising they fry them selves.

 

[Alistriwen]

We were wondering if platies are social fish or if a lone female would be ok in the 10 gal? Im pretty sure the 2nd female is at least a week away from birthing but the 1st one I am not sure. She could go in the next couple of days. I want to move her in now, but don't want her to be stressed out being by herself in a new tank. Also, any reccomendations for how to move from tank to tank?

 

[Alistriwen]

Appologize for the quality of the pictures, we're still learning how to do tank pics. I took some close ups of the individual fish but theyre not worth showing cuz theyre too dark.

One of the pics shows a pregnant platy maybe someone knows how close she is?

 

[Fish on Fire]

Is the area where the babies come out dark? Like can you see the eyes of some of them? I would just net her and move her or else use a cup or a ziplock bag to reduce stress.

 

[Alistriwen]

Is the area where the babies come out dark? Like can you see the eyes of some of them? I would just net her and move her or else use a cup or a ziplock bag to reduce stress.

I wish there was, I used to be able to tell when my guppies were good to go by the dark spot. As of this morning though she was huge and Im sure she's about to pop tonight or tomorrow Id say but Im not experienced with the breed. The food we bought seems to be superb because all of our fish are growing noticeably day to day and the really pregnant platty is getting massive.

I've got her in the 10 gal now in a ziploc. Going to adjust her to the tank slowly then put her in the breeding net. I know that can lead to stress but we have a filter that sucks and all the babies would be filter food if they didnt get trapped in the net.