Breeding and Raising Tropical Fish
Written by Evelyn (c) 2007
The perfect Breeding conditions, temperature is usually around 78-82 degrees. For breeding, the ratio should always be 1 male to 2-3 females, if you have only 1 female to 1 male, the male may chase her to death.
The gestation period of all livebearers is 28 days, but remember, even without a male around, a female can have up to 6 batches of fry, because they can store the sperm for that long, so if you buy a female, expect her to be pregnant.
Just before birth the females gets a squarely appearance just beneath their head and a dark gravid spot (which can be in some cases light colored, as an example on an orange platy it will be light orange or reddish).
Here is also a video that shows a guppy just before birth and the appearances I'm talking about
http://video.yahoo.com/video/play?vid=812528
And a guppy giving birth
http://youtube.com/watch?v=kFkBjD2Le3k
What to do before the female gives birth?
There are basically 3 ways:
1- put the female in a 3way breeder or a net
2- leave the female in the main tank, if you have lots of plants
3- you have your own breeding tank where you can put your female in
What to do when the fry is born?
Option 1-
Take the female out and leave the fry where they are and feed them with First Bites or flake food ground into powder 3-5 times a day for the first 5 days, then you can feed them flake food just crushed with the fingers, big enough for them to eat. Be careful not to put to much food in there. These breeders get dirty very fast with a brown layer on the bottom. What I always did, was taking a new soft paintbrush and cleaning it out from the bottom, for excess food on the water, I took a paper towel to take it out, that way the fry don't get to much disturbed
Option 2-
Usually you won't find your fry until they're about 1 week old, because they can hide really well, and they will feed from whatever they will find. In my experience, fry born in the tank grows much faster and healthier then the fry in the breeders, because they have just more room to swim around and grow
Option 3-
You will take out the female after she's done birthing and raise the fry there by themselves.
Which option is better?
Option 1-
Is the worst, because the breeders are so small, and they really only stress out the females, and if the female is put in there to early, it usually causes abortion or early birth and a lot of the fry is underdeveloped.
Option 2-
Is only good if you have enough live plants for the fry, so they can hide, or if you only want to have a few survivors
In my experience if kept in a community, 5-15 fry's generally survive.
Option 3-
Is ultimately the best, if you really plan on keeping as many fry as possible, the fry can grow without being in fear of bigger fish eating them.
Tropicals which should absolutely not be put into a breeder because of their size:
When can I put my fry back into the main tank from a breeder or breeder tank. The common rule is, when the baby fish is bigger than the biggest fish mouth in the tank!!
With mollies, that's usually when they're around 3-4 weeks old
With guppies, that's usually when they're around 4-6 weeks old
With dwarf platies, that's usually when they're around 6-8 weeks old |
