Beginner Breading

each fish are diffrent. some lay eggs and others give birth to live fish. until you figure out what fish you want to bread its hard to tell you what size of tank and everything. as many people have said guppys, platies, swordtails and mollies are good to start off with. i am also new to breading my self. best thing to do for the fish i stated is put the pregnant fish in its own tank. when she gives birth then move her out of the tank. when the fry fish get bigger you can move them into the tank with the rest of the fish. you could also leave them in your main tank if there are many places to hide.
 
One thing about doing a tank like this is to have plenty of drift wood, rocks, hidey holes and lots of plants. For live bearers, I like using Hornwort ( cheap plant that is sold at any petstore) and java moss ( a little more pricier but grows really well.) Float the hornwort on top of the water and let it float, Java fern tie it some driftwood. This will allow the fry to hide. Plus the fry will feed off of infusia that lives off the plants. Its very good food for them.
 
This does'nt seem to be answered yet but, to feed live bearer fry, all you do is crush some flake food for them. It can't get any easier than that.
 
OK I have a bucha guppy fry at the moment this is how I am breeding them.

I have a 20 gallon with some live plants, some fake ones, a little resin log, a filter and air hose. Assuming you have a tank already set up add your fish (highly recommend guppies). One male to 3 females is a good ratio. Put them in a tank together. I have white clouds and danios in the same tank and have had no problem, but the babies are in a breeding net for at least a month.
Anyway...You can pretty much guarantee that the female(s) will be bred within the first 24 hours. Wait 28-30 days. When the gravid spot on the females (little black spot by the butt) dissappears and she squares out (butt looks a bit square shaped), put her in a little breeding net in the tank. I use the kind that hook over the side. Make sure you have some cover in the net like a floating plant. Babies need to hide from Mommie Dearest.

Give her about 12 hours and she should be done. At this point I put her in another empty breeding net for about 12-24 hours to let her rest a bit.

I feed the babies finely powdered fish flakes. They grow fast. I feed them several times a day. If you want to breed a certain color strain you need to get certain guppies of the same color. I like to mix and match just to see what they will turn out like. If you are going to do this as a paying hobby you will want to get a few tanks set up for the various ages of guppy fry, pregger mommies, and to set up seperate tanks for female and males. They don't possess a ressive gene so they can inbreed without any ill effects.

They like live plants and raising the temp in the tank to 79-80 help the born and unborn fry develop.
 
I started my big tank cycle by putting in 50 fancy red delta tail guppy fry and some plants. I did absolutely nothing other than feed them and do water changes.

It's been nearly a year since then, and I've traded over 150 of them to my local fish store, and still have close to 200 of them in the tank (various ages, from fry to adults). I can't trade them in fast enough...they just keep producing.

I bought a few Mickey Mouse Platies for my wife's tank, and soon enough one of the two females became pregnant. I put her into a breeding net when she looked ready to burst, and that night got 22 fry. I removed the mother and started feeding the fry finely powderized flake food.

Most fry from fish that lay eggs have specialized nutritional needs. The only specialized feeding needs for most livebearers is to ensure the flakes are small enough for them to eat. I do this by cupping my hand, dropping a big pinch of flakes into the palm of my cupped hand and grinding them up between thumb and forefinger with my other hand until it's like powder. That usually makes an amount that suffices for a few feedings for a single brood.

v/r, N-A
 
When I first started breading fish, I used a mix of yellow cornmeal with seasonings and dipped catfish fillets in it. Since then I've created some tasty combinations.
When it comes to breeding, so far I've had "bad" luck in buying juvie mbuna before they can be sexed--seem to get more males than females. Maybe some time in the future. . . .
 
rosita said:
When I first started breading fish, I used a mix of yellow cornmeal with seasonings and dipped catfish fillets in it. Since then I've created some tasty combinations.
Click to expand...
lol, you said..err wrote...what I was thinking! :p:
 
GUYZY said:
Native American, what's a shrimp farm? Are you breeding them or something?
Click to expand...
I should probably start another thread...yes, I am breeding them.

The first brood initially produced about 16 juvenile Ghost Shrimp, but I had a rapid die-off after they were a month old...they simply quit molting. On the advice of somebody from fishforums.net, I added a pinch of iodized salt to give the shrimp the iodide needed for successful growth. So far, so good, there are 6 survivors that are about 3/4-inch long, growing and molting successfully.

My other 3-gallon Eclipse holds another brood of about 2 dozen. I added some iodized salt, and have had no die-off at the one-month point. These are thriving.

Each Eclipse 3 started w/ a small clump of Java Moss, and this has completely filled each tank. Great stuff. I have a couple Malaysian Trumpet Snails (MTS) in each tank to help out w/ cleanup, though the shrimp, by their nature, clean up their food nicely.

I'm going to move all 30 Ghost Shrimp to a 10-gallon tank in my daughter's room by the end of the month.

On the livebearer note, my platy females are pregnant yet again, and I find new fry every day in the big tank.

As others have said...just add water...they're hardy and prolific.

v/r, N-A
 
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