55 Gallon Tank Empty 55g for breeding something

Hello everyone! So I have an empty 55g I want to set up as a breeding project. So I'm just curious, if you had an empty 55g, what would you breed? Here's what I've been thinking so far:

Split the tank in half and do either:
2 pairs of Black Lace Angelfish
2 pairs of long fin super red bristlenose


And that's about as far as I got haha. I'd also be ok not splitting the tank and doing a single pair of something but I'm unsure of what. Thoughts?

 

Hello everyone! So I have an empty 55g I want to set up as a breeding project. So I'm just curious, if you had an empty 55g, what would you breed? Here's what I've been thinking so far:

Split the tank in half and do either:
2 pairs of Black Lace Angelfish
2 pairs of long fin super red bristlenose


And that's about as far as I got haha. I'd also be ok not splitting the tank and doing a single pair of something but I'm unsure of what. Thoughts?

Angels will not work with just one tank and two pairs. I have no idea about the bristlenose, but generally speaking you will need more tank for growout if you did angels.

If you wanted to do angels at that level, with two pairs, I'd suggest 2x 20 gallon and 3x 55g. This will give you the 20g for each pair to spawn in, a free tank to move the parents to so you can grow out fry in a smaller tank at first, and the 55s to grow out and separate juveniles by size or keep two or three spawns at once.

Otherwise keep one pair and still 2 tanks, a 20g and a 55g, and even then you will likely need to destroy eggs because every 15 days roughly the pair will spawn and you'll run out of space to raise fry.
If you did a 20g and a 55g, you'd need to get rid of the juveniles by dime to nickel body size. Beyond that it gets really hard to maintain water quality and fish quality and there will be a population collapse as they grow bigger and bigger.

If maintained right and no missteps, and not immediately removing eggs from the parents to jar rear, angels can be really productive and produce 200-300 fry every 30 days or so or more than this.
If removing the eggs to jar rear they can spawn again about every 15 days.

Been there. Gotta be ready for all the fish or try something a lot less productive. It's hard to get spawns to dime size and above but once you figure it out, you can get overrun with fish and not enough tank for it.

 

Angels will not work with just one tank and two pairs. I have no idea about the bristlenose, but generally speaking you will need more tank for growout if you did angels.

If you wanted to do angels at that level, with two pairs, I'd suggest 2x 20 gallon and 3x 55g. This will give you the 20g for each pair to spawn in, a free tank to move the parents to so you can grow out fry in a smaller tank at first, and the 55s to grow out and separate juveniles by size or keep two or three spawns at once.

Otherwise keep one pair and still 2 tanks, a 20g and a 55g, and even then you will likely need to destroy eggs because every 15 days roughly the pair will spawn and you'll run out of space to raise fry.
If you did a 20g and a 55g, you'd need to get rid of the juveniles by dime to nickel body size. Beyond that it gets really hard to maintain water quality and fish quality and there will be a population collapse as they grow bigger and bigger.

If maintained right and no missteps, and not immediately removing eggs from the parents to jar rear, angels can be really productive and produce 200-300 fry every 30 days or so or more than this.
If removing the eggs to jar rear they can spawn again about every 15 days.

Been there. Gotta be ready for all the fish or try something a lot less productive. It's hard to get spawns to dime size and above but once you figure it out, you can get overrun with fish and not enough tank for it.

Yeah, I do understand that. I used to breed black lace angelfish which is why I'm considering them. Thanks for the feedback though, I'm always interested to learn from other fellow aquarist!

 

What do you want to do with the fry? Grow them in that tank or do you have a separate tank? Continue to just grow the population for your own enjoyment? Or do you want to sell?

 

What do you want to do with the fry? Grow them in that tank or do you have a separate tank? Continue to just grow the population for your own enjoyment? Or do you want to sell?

For now just grow for my enjoyment. And I do have several tanks setup currently so I would have a place to grow them out!

 

For now just grow for my enjoyment. And I do face several tanks setup currently so I would have a place to grow them out!

I would do an apistogramma pair and some sterbai cories for breeding. And then have a good size school of tetras of some sort for fun to look at.

 

Talked to my LFS and think I decided I will split the tank in half and do a breeding pair of Long Fin Super Red BN on one side, and Long Fin Green Dragon BN on the other side as there isn't a reliable breeder of them in my area! I think this will be a fun project!

 

Hey Cadilac15 .
I had this reply written before your last post . I did not send it because I was not sure if you would be interested? I have breed 3 generations of BN and yes it’s “a fun project “ I hop this helps a bit?
Expect over 200 eggs from a healthy well fed 5 inch female.
A young male is said to be the most reliable at fanning the eggs for 4 days.

As written earlier today.
One pair of bristle nose plecos will give you to many fry for a single 55g.
Ok if you cull down to a hundred or so BN fry and had somewhere to put the adults in two separate tanks you could raise BN in a 55 g I believe but I have not used a 55 for juveniles.

You need to have a shop that will take the juveniles before they are more than two inches as the males begin to fight at that size. The female juveniles will not get enough food.

The way I have raised BN a few times is using 8 or so 22 gallon tanks and grading by size . Keeping the smaller juveniles in separate tanks is one way of feeding the smaller fish. I have seen videos of leaving a ton of food in the tank all day long. That might work with auto water changes? With feeding small amounts 4 or 5 times a day it’s still necessary to do multiple water changes each week in order to get faster growth. You are looking at around 6 months of work to get them to 2 inches. It’s also possible your town sells BN at a much smaller size ?

 

Hey Cadilac15 .
I had this reply written before your last post . I did not send it because I was not sure if you would be interested? I have breed 3 generations of BN and yes it’s “a fun project “ I hop this helps a bit?
Expect over 200 eggs from a healthy well fed 5 inch female.
A young male is said to be the most reliable at fanning the eggs for 4 days.

As written earlier today.
One pair of bristle nose plecos will give you to many fry for a single 55g.
Ok if you cull down to a hundred or so BN fry and had somewhere to put the adults in two separate tanks you could raise BN in a 55 g I believe but I have not used a 55 for juveniles.

You need to have a shop that will take the juveniles before they are more than two inches as the males begin to fight at that size. The female juveniles will not get enough food.

The way I have raised BN a few times is using 8 or so 22 gallon tanks and grading by size . Keeping the smaller juveniles in separate tanks is one way of feeding the smaller fish. I have seen videos of leaving a ton of food in the tank all day long. That might work with auto water changes? With feeding small amounts 4 or 5 times a day it’s still necessary to do multiple water changes each week in order to get faster growth. You are looking at around 6 months of work to get them to 2 inches. It’s also possible your town sells BN at a much smaller size ?

Awesome! I really appreciate the information! I will have some smaller grow out tanks for them! But with that advice I think I will stick to just one breeding pair instead of multiples! My LFS will take my juveniles (For store credit if nothing else) as they don't have a supplier of LF SR BN. I have no problems doing multiple changes as I currently do WCs twice a week on most of my tanks (I really like doing WCs as I find it relaxing and it helps with my combat PTSD). I really appreciate your input, and if it's ok with you, I may have more questions for you in the future! It'll still be a couple months before I get this tank fully setup, and plan on buying 5 LF SR BN to grow until I get a breeding pair, then trade in the rest. Thank you SO MUCH for the feedback!

 

At least with the Australian blood line I have there is no need to try and bold a pair / form a breeding pair.

Each time I have put a male and a female in the same tank I have had eggs in under a week. Admittedly I feed zucchini once a week and probably over feed all my fish. I have not ever gone out of my way to condition a female with life foods as you would with say a betta. Yes I feed frozen bloodworms to all my fish and I am sure the BN have always taken advantage of my excessive feeding of the community tanks.

In general I NEVER have more than one BN in any tank for fear of them breeding. I remove the female as soon as the male is on eggs again for fear of them breeding again. I put my success down to keeping the adults away from each other and any chance of breeding ?

I have always used a 22 gallon for the parents tank but they are both only in the tank for 10 days tops. The female is removed at 5 days or as soon as I see eggs.

Everyone likes a picture of fry?


50 % albino BN and 50% black . Just a few cherry shrimp as always.