Black emperors

[NoodleCats]

neontetraking
I have 10 permanent tanks, and most of my fish spawn in the community tanks anyways. Either I collect the eggs or fry and raise them separately if I have the space and time or I let nature happen.
Right now, ive got the emperor fry, and they've been taking up most of my time. But I dont have other fry at the moment either. I try to balance with what I can manage.

The tetras here I purposely set up the parents to spawn, so I could get more females for my own group. So this was a more controlled breeding.

Otherwise, I keep all my tanks in conditions the fish would expect naturally (GH, pH, temperature) and for those more wild, I also try to mimic their natural environment as best I can to help them feel more at home. Also, feed them with good foods, lots of variety instead of always the same thing. Keep on top of good maintenance.

Give fish good care and I find if they're happy and comfortable, they dont really need much of a boost to spawn on their own (in most cases, some species are not easy spawners).

Some fish i just let them do what they want, most of my babies raised have been my fish's choice. A few have been set up for spawning though (my emperor tetras and my weitzmani corydoras).

So in short:
Know your species parameters.
Know your species habitat.
Know your species diet.
Stay consistent with care and maintenance.

 

[Wyomingite]

The fry are getting bigger, and chunkier.
View attachment 229023

Yay, they're starting to look like emperor tetras!

WYite

 

[Wyomingite]

How about an update? As someone who's never had any tetras spawn thanks to the liquid rock my fish live in, I've really enjoyed living vicariously through this thread. I'm also waiting for a cory spawning thread as well. Hint, hint.

WYite

 

[NoodleCats]

Here's a photo of them, theyre almost ready to move to a 20g final grow out and theyre eating powdered dry foods readily now! Just a matter of finalizing the flubendazole treatment on the cories in the 20g before adding other fish to it.



And a photo of one taken under a microscope through the glass.

Getting fry onto dried foods is the hardest part after the infusoria stage tbh. Glad these guys have taken right to flakes and pellets powdered up

 

[NoodleCats]

And while not the most cooperative, this is the largest and most bossy of the fry

 

[Wyomingite]

Cool. They're definitely at a size that you could make a guess as to their identity if you had multiple species of egg scatterers in a tank. Really starting to look like little emperors!

They look like they're about the size I see danios or rasboras venturing out of the plants after an unexpected spawn. That size where they're just old enough that they don't have to worry too much about getting ate. This post is about 2 months 3 weeks from the first post in this thread. I wonder if rasbora development time is about the same, because it would be nice if I could retrogress in my head backwards to try to figure out when my fish spawned. Then maybe I could make an active effort to induce spawning in the rasboras. Not so much the danios that spawn in my tanks, as they spawn often enough that I always have young ones around. But I'd like to get some consistency with the rasboras.

WYite

 

[NoodleCats]

Yeah they're toggling about 1/2" now
But emperor tetras are a large tetra too, so I dont know how they'd compare to rasboras