Which fish to breed?

[jetajockey]

Since I recently acquired several 40 gallon breeder tanks, I figure I should start planning out what I should breed. Any suggestions? I'm already wanting to do some of the rarer danio species, peacock gudgeons, and possibly some selective livebearer breeding. Also thinking about doing german rams. I didn't expect to have tanks of this size so I think it does open up a few more possibilities of larger fish. Opinions are welcome

 

[Treefork]

Hrm, seems like you have a lot of ideas already! I'm going to try to spawn my cory cats soon, I have four that I got about 2 years ago that I've been wanting to try, but I have to get another spawning tank set up for them to try it. Try cories.

 

[yallyall1]

Congrats on the new tank

Personally, breeding fancy guppies would be nice!

Maybe some convicts?

I'm not sure about the danios, but generally smaller fish are harder to breed. Especially if they are rare!

But please don't let that stop you, if you're up for the challenge

 

[Shawnie]

angels , firemouths, bristle nose plecs are a few I like

 

[jetajockey]

well the thing about the CPDs is that I don't particularly need a 40 gallon tank for them, they breed well in a 5 gallon lol. Hopefully Dennis will chime in at some point because he has a vast amount of experience with them. I have 20 gallon longs also that will probably be better suited for the smaller species, unless I had hundreds and hundreds in there of course.
Angelfish are awesome, but in that particular realm I have little knowledge of what is the most desirable, personally I like the superwhite angels but I see others who like the marbles and whatnot. So the crux is understanding what people want.

 

[yallyall1]

CPDs... ahhhhhh ok!

I think that would be a great project to do!

yeah, dennis is the expert on them! But there are others around the forum that have them too and (might!) have attempted breeding them...

but with a that tank, I couldn't resist larger fish like as shawnie said (firemouths are pretty!)

 

[jetajockey]

i've never been impressed with firemouths. I grew up on the bay, we have a perch like fish here that we call pinfish, and a lot of the cichlids remind me of them lol. I need some convincing, so far I've only been wowed by shelldwellers and rams lol

 

[Kunsthure]

Ever since I read about them, Ameca Splendens have been my personal choice of livebearer to breed. Not only are they gorgeous, but they're rare and by some accounts actually extinct in the wild so without aquarists these beautiful fish would be gone forever. Plus they have relatively small broods and don't store sperm like other livebearers.

-Lisa

 

[tetralover77]

tetras

 

[Chris123]

Ever since I read about them, Ameca Splendens have been my personal choice of livebearer to breed. Not only are they gorgeous, but they're rare and by some accounts actually extinct in the wild so without aquarists these beautiful fish would be gone forever. Plus they have relatively small broods and don't store sperm like other livebearers.

-Lisa

I agree these are totatly cool fish to breed I have some myself and they are very pretty.



For other fish I suggest cocktoos ABN or some other type of rare livebearer
Chris

 

[jetajockey]

there's a vendor over on aquariacentral that has splendens for sale, iirc. If I pick a livebearer I'll probably start with a pure strain of endlers, I've yet to see any in the local LFS (there's about 6 or 7 LFS here)

If you are talking about cockatoo cichlids, I saw some pics and they are really pretty, definite option there. ABN = albino bristlenose? just a stab there, i'm not a pleco person so not likely, if anything I may go with panda corys just for the cuteness factor, can you imagine 500 panda babies going after an algae wafer?

I did happen to see some celebes halfbeaks in a LFS yesterday, tempting for a rare livebearer for sure, although I don't know what kind of market they would fetch, or know much about them apart from looking a lot like needlefish.

 

[harpua2002]

You wouldn't need a 40BR to try them, but Apistogramma are really cool fish and are usually much harder to come by than rams (which can be a bad thing if you can't find them, but a good thing if you're the only one around that has them). I'm currently keeping 5 species of apistos and have gotten a couple species breeding so far.

 

[Butterfly]

Shell dwellers need more floor space than height but they are cool little fish.
Angelfish would do well breeding in a tank that size
Carol

 

[jetajockey]

thanks! now I have something to research

 

[Treefork]

Kribensis are really pretty small cichlids. Not much to breeding them either, they're like convicts, male and female pair and wham you got a million babies.

 

[Butterfly]

Kribensis are really pretty small cichlids. Not much to breeding them either, they're like convicts, male and female pair and wham you got a million babies.

Pretty much true Their gorgeous little fish too.
Carol

 

[Danionins]

Hey jetajockey that's fantastic you got the tanks! When you start spawning fish you can never have too many....

I've found that I usually need 3 tanks for each species of danio I'm working with.

1. The tank that the breed stock normally live in.
2. The tank used for actual spawning - also houses eggs & new born fry.
3. One or more grow-out tanks for fry - I like to keep spawns separate.

With cichlids and livebearers, you can sometimes use one tank for all three functions.

A lot depends on what your breeding ambitions are. If you are just looking to raise a few fry then your set-ups will be different than if you want maximum fry production.

The main thing is to have fun! Best of luck with whatever you decide on.

Dennis

 

[firemouthfreak]

Try convicts! They're really interesting fish but you must have a way to get rid of the fry. (Donate them to LFS or trade them for fish food) Oh but they would have that whole tank to their selves. You could try Firemouths! Which I am currently trying but I can't do that with only one fish

 

[harpua2002]

Exactly, you'd need a way to get rid of the fry....
FMs and cons are so cheap and so readily available, you're not going to be able to sell any fry. The LFSs can get these fish so cheap from the wholesalers that it isn't worth it to buy fry from a hobbyist.

 

[bolivianbaby]

Apistos, some of the rarer color variations (blue wag platys, black swordtails, koI swordtails, red-eye swordtails) of livebearers, any species that's not readily available in your area will be a good start. I also vote for some of the more difficult to find color variations of danio.

I hope this helps.

 

[firemouthfreak]

FMs and cons are so cheap and so readily available, you're not going to be able to sell any fry.

I'd disagree with you on the FM's.. The whole Houston area is out of Firemouths, LFS's anyway. I'm still waiting for my order to come in.. which has been over 2 months now..

 

[harpua2002]

From the perspective of someone who has wholesale accounts for purchasing fish (I'm starting a LFS), trust me, they are not only very cheap but readily available from many wholesalers. The shops in your area are either sold out of them, or just aren't ordering them.

 

[btate617]

True I can get 2" firemouths for $2.99, and F1's for $4.99.

Ask a shop to order some, they are not hard to come by.

 

[jetajockey]

Exactly, you'd need a way to get rid of the fry....
FMs and cons are so cheap and so readily available, you're not going to be able to sell any fry. The LFSs can get these fish so cheap from the wholesalers that it isn't worth it to buy fry from a hobbyist.

I've even read a few forum threads about people using cons for feeders...

My main goal with this is to hopefully introduce some more rare species into this area, there isn't much selection here in that regard, and also help cover some expenses by selling them off. I don't really expect to make much of anything but I just don't want to get stuck with a bunch of fish that no one wants (or only wants to feed to something else)

 

[jetajockey]

Apistos, some of the rarer color variations (blue wag platys, black swordtails, koI swordtails, red-eye swordtails) of livebearers, any species that's not readily available in your area will be a good start. I also vote for some of the more difficult to find color variations of danio.

I hope this helps.

I'm already starting on the danio angle, not really variations but rather different rare species. there are several species that didn't get released to the western world until a few years ago, so the market for them is still forming.

I'm trying to stay away from livebearers, at least until I learn a little more about genetics and selective breeding anyhow. There seems to be a ready supply of platys here because the big LFS here had 4 or 5 tanks of different types lol. The LFS does have a few rare fish(I say rare, but really I just don't know what they are off the top of my head), but I don't really know a whole lot about cichlids. What really discouraged me from going that route was that the rare fish that they do sell don't really seem appealing. If they wouldn't have told me they had CPDs (labeled as galaxy rasbora) I wouldve thought that they were just feeders in there for the larger fish swimming in the tank.