Celestial Pearl Danio Eggs

Hello, it seems I will become a (fish) daddy. I am actually horrified at the thought because I am too young. Just kidding.

My recently acquired 5 Celestial Pearl Danio have laid eggs. Ironically the tank has not been fully cycled. It has been running for 1.5 months and the fish have been in there almost 4 weeks. I added tetra safe start 5 days ago.

Five days ago I noticed bubbles laid all over the hornwort that have little white dots inside them. I have only 2 red cherry shrimp and some bladder snails. I was planning on removing the eggs thinking they are bladder snail eggs. But I noticed the female fish defending them fiercely from all fish and shrimp. So I went on youtube to see how celestial pearl danio eggs look like and they look exactly the same.

I am curious how long these eggs take to "hatch". I am not sure what to do. I have a 20-gallon aquarium with 5 juvenile Black Ruby Barbs that have colored up and are showing breeding behavior. It's not even valentine's day yet. When should I transfer the 5 Celestial Pearl Danio over to the 20-gallons tank to avoid them eating their fry? Would the Black Ruby Barbs eat the Celestial Pearl Danios? I doubt it, but you never know. Should I just leave them as they are? I don't know what to feed the fry in the first place. Something that does not need much work preparing, Unfortunately, I am a very busy man.

 

Hi, congrats on the eggs, I have to say I never saw any eggs with my Cpd’s just the fry appearing on a regular basis.
Have you any pics of the eggs? just to make sure they are Cpd eggs as they are quite voracious eaters of their own eggs & fry

 

So I'm going to bump this instead of making a new thread.

Today I just noticed on some floating water wisteria these little guys which I'm pretty darn sure are CPD eggs. I'm setting up a separate 10 gallon tank which will have a fully cycled sponge filter in it. I never thought of breeding these guys but since I think these eggs are good to go that I'd give it a try before they all get eaten.

Can anyone confirm if these indeed are CPD eggs and if so, is there anything I need to do besides transfer this to my smaller tank? A lot of the info that I've come across says how to start the breeding process but I can't find much specific information about how to properly care for the eggs. At this point does the substrate, hiding spots, etc matter at all?

I am relatively new to fish keeping, nevermind breeding them!, but if I can get these things to hatch and grow I'd be over the moon.

 

Flexbuffchest , sorry to burst your bubbles, but those are pond or bladder snail eggs. CPD lay single eggs, scattered around, so you would never find them in a clump like that.

 

Flexbuffchest , sorry to burst your bubbles, but those are pond or bladder snail eggs. CPD lay single eggs, scattered around, so you would never find them in a clump like that.

Darn, that's a bummer. Thanks for letting me know.

 

I also thought they were CPD eggs back when I started this thread. I agree they are bladder snail eggs. I get a ton of those and I breed my bladder snails too. I think they are on the 6th to 8th generation. I managed to breed a white shell strain of bladder snails. I never got to see my CPD eggs. I just left the water stand for a week and then I started noticing them swimming around slowly. They look like small sperms, the CPD fry that is when they are born. It has been 2.5 months later and 2 of them look like fully grown adults and 2 are getting there. I have the tank uncycled and unfiltered all this time. I just ordered a filter for them. I don't know what they say but ammonia is very little if none at all. I have had nothing in the tank except for the fry and the bladder snails all this time. A lot of people advise to have the tank cycled but I have removed the filter as soon as I removed the parents.

If you want to breed your CPD's put a male and two females (I had 4 females) in a tank of your choice (I had them in 5.5 gallons). Plant the tank and feed them well for a week and allow them to get settled. They breed in the early morning hours or as soon as you turn on the lights. They breed on a daily basis and get to eat their eggs, so the more plants the better. I used hornwort and moss balls for plants, but I don't advise that as the hornwort is sensitive to water changes and will deteriorate and will make a mess out of your tank.. like it did mine. Then remove the parents after a week or even two and let the water stand for another week and see if anything is moving. The fry will be so tiny. I would advise to not put any filter in the tank as most would suck up the eggs. Perhaps one of those internal bubble making filters or a sponge filter. I had a Marineland biowheel 100 in there. But if you add plants in the tank there is no real need to cycle it as the plants will take care of the ammonia produced by the 2-3 CPD's. I am pretty sure I lost a lot of fry to the filter. I got lucky that 4 eggs survived the parents and the filter. I also advise keeping the breeder tank without gravel or at leash use, a layer of thick pebbles as the gravel will get very dirty and nasty with all the breeding, the rotting hornwort and the fry growing up. I had to throw mine away as worms started appearing. This is mainly I think because of no filter is available. Anyways that's how I got to breed my CPD's. Oh, the water temperature was like 75-78 F all the time. I am waiting for them to grow up one more week or two to add a filter or maybe I will add them with their parents and breed another batch. Read up on other members or even make a thread asking how to breed them. I am sure plenty of people can give you their stories or tips.

 

Also, I had a problem with what to feed them. So I stumbled on a video that showed me how to feed the fry using egg yolk. You can feed them egg yolk for up to two weeks. I feed them for three weeks of egg yolk. You boil an egg, you remove the white stuff and take some piece of the egg yolk. You put in a kitchen towel and you rub it in the water making it dissolve into very tiny particles. Then stir the water to spread it around. Your water will be nasty so do water changes often. I had to remove all the fry after a week to do full water changes. Some people advise a turkey basting, I used my net. Alternatively, you can change 30 % of the water slowly with a cup making sure you don't throw any fry away. I had four so I knew when everyone was out of the tank to make the water change. I failed to grow infusoria and was too lazy to make them brine shrimp. So I switched to hikarI first bites. I would wet my finger put it in the package and then dip it in the tank. Then I would stir the water a little as first bites sink faster than egg yolk. They ate the first bites until two weeks ago when I started to switch them to regular fish flakes that I would crush with my fingers into very small pieces. Beware though, the flakes mostly go uneaten so a snail population is great to clean up after the leftovers that sink to the bottom. Else you will get an ammonia spike. At first, I was very excited that I got to breed the CPD's, but in the last 2 weeks, I am tired and can't wait for them to fully grow so I will stop with all that special attention and water changes. I also managed to figure out which Rummynose is male and female, so I have been breeding them unsuccessfully because I have no other tanks and the fish eat their eggs. I will give them a try at some point. I think the key to them is plants and temperature around 80F and I think pH. They don't breed often, I seen them do it once a month but when they do you will know they are breeding. The males rub along and hug the female like snakes while she releases eggs. The males are always thin. The female has a thicker body. As for the CPD's telling them apart is easy, the females have a round belly whereas the males are slI'm and curved like a boomerang. Googling them will make it easier to spot the difference. Good luck and have fun!