Picking fish for breeding...

I am restocking my 29 gal, so I can breed some fish. I will have three platies, three guppies, and two cories(cories not for breeding). I figure that's leaves me with about 14 inches of fish(if you use the 1 inch per gallon) and I wanted to know some non-liverbears I could put in there.

The fish count so far:
3 Platies
3 Guppies
2 Albino Cory Cats

 

I could list many. What are you specifically looking for? I'm guessing community, and non live bearer, but do you want easy breeders, small neons, active fish,..... what exactly?

 

I'm looking for non live bearer, community, easy breeders.

 

ok, here's a few:

Black Widow Tetra (Keep 5+ and they will never bother your livebearers)
Head and Tail Light Tetra
Pristella Tetra
Red Eye Tetra
Black Phantom Tetra
Black Neon Tetra
Lemon Tetra
Flame (Von Rio) Tetra
Zebra Danio
Various Species of Gourami
White Cloud Mountain Minnow
Almost all Corydoras Species
Bristlenose Catfish >> Moderately easy to breed

 

So do you think I could breed my cory cats? Maybe I will get 3 more if I do that.
If I do the cory cats, will they breed with different species? Like will my albino cory cats breed with spotted cory cats?

 

I'm not sure on the cory cats. I don't think they're real easy to breed, but some other members here have been successful with that.

 

How about the Black Widow Tetras?

 

Well, a strain is just like a breed. So, lets say we have a 2 guppys - 1 blue and 1 yellow. The yellow one belongs to a strain called 'yellow', and the same for the blue. ('Yellow' is not an acctual strain name) Stores usually don't accept cross bred fish. For cory breeding, check out the Shane's world area of planet catfish. There's an article for anything catfish there! A community is not a really good place for breeding because the babys get eaten Those tetras are pretty easy to breed outside the community. Livebeaeres are the only really easy breeders for the community.

 

yea...could I use a divider for the tetras if I get those?

 

yea...could I use a divider for the tetras if I get those?

Well, a divider might work. I think tets need soft water to breed though - research it!

 

That's another thing, livebearers need hard water, and tetras, soft. But I've kept the two species together and have had them both breed.

 

A lot of fish adapt and can breed outside of their listed breeding conditions. Some can't, but livebearers and tetras are pretty good at breeding.

 

I also heard that tetras like a lower pH, like 6.5 or something? So do you think I could keep my tank at a pH of 7 and a medium hardness? that sounds like it might work because its inbetween for both.

 

7.0 as a pH is perfect for almost all fish

 

Okay. So if I get the tets, would I need a divider, or would it be okay?

 

After reading up a bit on some of the tetras, it sounds like black neons would be good. A website I found on breeding them, said after the spawning has happened, I remove them from that area. How do I tell when the spawning has happened, and what is spawning?

Btw, I'm completely new to breeding non-live bearers, I've only bred my platies.

 

Spawning is when they lay their eggs. The eggs will hatch, some will go bad (go from clear to solid in color) and need to be removed carefully, and the fry will be very tiny at first.

Infusoria or BBS is a good first food, or flakes crushed to powder.

I like to raise the fry in a separate tank with a bare bottom and a sponge filter. An air stone and a few caves/plants too.

 

right now I have a 10 gallon with some small/medium sized substrate and large glass marbles in the front. I use that tank for my platy fry that are 2+ weeks. could I leave the tank as is or would I need to do anything to it? I use it for the fry to grow up in, I sell the platies when they are 3 months old.

 

you could use it to rear the tetra fry if you want. otherwise, the tetras would have to go into the other half of the divided tank (if that's what your doing) after they finish spawning

 

If my mom will let me I might be able to set up a 5 gallon I have...I was planning on eventually getting a betta in the old 5g, but idk. I also have 2 breeder nets but I only use one(to raise my platy fry until they are 1-2 weeks old).

 

the 5 gallon would be much better for the tetra fry if you're gonna breed them. The breeder nets (so I've found out) are efficient for separating more aggressive fish rather than rearing fry because due to the small space, they will stunt the growth of your fry and may cause premature death.

 

hmmm, well if I can't get the 5 gallon set up, should I abandon the thought of breeding non live bearers?

 

If your breeder net is your last resort, unfortunately, it'd be the better thing to do. Fry of any species of fish are sensitive to water parameters, and the ammonia will buildup in such a small environment, I know, I've tried.

 

So, basically, I should hold off on the non livebearers until I find a place for the fry?

 

I would. It's best to have a place to be able to raise the fry safely and give them room to grow out.

 

Okay, thanks for the help everyone!