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My Dario dario & Dario Hysginon

3K views 4 replies 4 participants last post by  Featherstone 
#1 ·
I'm hoping to breed these. For now I only have a pair of Dario hysginon and a single male Dario dario but I'm looking for female D. dario.
The single male wasn't doing too well when I bought him because he was on his own in a small shop tank with a huge shoal of tetras. He was almost totally colourless and starved so I rescued him and I'm proud of how well he's doing now.
All three share an 11 gallon tank with red ramshorn snails, amanos, cherries and no other fish. It has a weeping moss wall and plenty of other plants and driftwood to break up lines of sight, I keep the water at about 22c and the tank uses a hamburg mattenfilter which they graze on constantly.
I understand they cannot hybridize and I've never seen any serious aggression between the two males. They don't bother the shrimp either but I wouldn't expect any baby shrimp to survive.
I feed them on live Daphnia and Moina as well as mixed zooplankton culture started from healthy pond water. All the livefood is fed on mixed Spirulina algae and yeast.
 

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#3 ·
Yeah, two males will fight but 75g is potentially enough space for several to establish their own territories.The key is hiding places and objects that break up the line of sight, they're happy to patrol a small area. Another consideration is flow - they like very little and don't enjoy struggling against any sort of current.
Some will tend to only accept livefood and if other fish are included in the tank can be outcompeted but the good news is that a large mature planted tank is likely to contain plenty of tiny organisms for them to graze on between feedings.
 
#5 ·
Msjinxd will occasionally sell Dario dario which she breeds (she has a website, and facebook). She wont guarantee sex, but I'm sure if you got 6 or more you'd end up with a female or two. I asked her awhile back and she says she does get females from her spawns, but the ratio is still skewed to males.

Females are hard to sex because they all seem to have a little red when younger, then when they mature the females either stay the color of juveniles (keep the pale red) or go to a paler color.

Someone on here also mentioned females tend to get starved out by males. I'm noticing it a little in my 29gal with the more timid ones (unsexed), but I think thats because they're only taking live foods, usually pretty starved when they come from the LFS, and the bolder ones have colored up and are likely dominant males.
 
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