dario dario breeding

[Psionic]

Well I have lots of dario dario. I have 3 definite females I got today. I have 15 males in my community tank. Although at least one of the paler striped ones in that tank is a female as it laid eggs inside the driftwood hole where a lot of them like to nestle into. Of course there is a shrimp in there eating the eggs. The male scares away the other dario, but not the shrimp. Damn shrimp.

Has anyone had any luck breeding these little fish? I was thinking of setting them up (the 3 females and 1 male) into one of my empty 10 gallon tanks. Putting in some eco-complete (thank you chibs!) with some clippings from my large tank and loading it up with plants and a piece of spare driftwood. I was also thinking some salvinia minima (thank you duff!) for extra shade.

Should I skip the stem plants and just put in a sword in there so they can scatter eggs there? I can later just chop that leaf off and move it into another tank with air flow for them to hatch. Or should I plant both to give them more shade and hidie holes? Should I put small clay pots in there instead so I can take them out instead of the plant leaves? Assuming they'd even scatter eggs in a clay pot.

How do you scrape eggs off of something, or do you leave them as is and just move the whole object?

My fish are currently eating daphnia and krill, anyone else have a food that they prefer to eat during spawning?

Should I pick my brightest male to spawn with the females, or would it matter? I have red ones with dark stripes and white ones with red stripes.

I read to keep the temp towards the latter end of their spectrum. Anyone have any other temp they've had luck with?

Also, what kind of water parameters has anyone done well with? I'm guessing just to hit for normal community tank numbers? Or should I go for tannins in the tank?

I'm not going to use excel in the tank or fertilize it. Or should I at least give half doses of excel for the plants? I'm going to put an air stone in there also for them along with the HOB on there now.

Hmm, I think that's all the questions I have for now. If I'm totally over thinking this, apologies. I just want the fry to have the highest chance of survival that I can provide.

[mistergreen]

Keep doing what you're doing. Skip the excel. They've done studies on glut and fish fry. It's not a pretty combination.

I think all you need to do is fatten them up with live foods. Here's some breeding info
http://seriouslyfish.com/profile.php...es=dario&id=41

[Psionic]

Well, I just finished rescaping their tank and put them in. I fed them a little bit of frozen daphnia and turned off the lights. I saw the male nibbling on some as the light went out. I put in a small amazon sword in there also. I was tempted to put in a root tab lol. Habit I suppose. But I didn't. All that's in there is a piece of driftwood and eco-complete and plants. Crypts in the front and pennywort with hygro sunset in the back.

[D3monic]

[thechibi]

Aww. They sound cute. I'm glad to hear they're doing well.

[mordalphus]

What kind of shrimp are eating the eggs? Most dwarf shrimp will only clean eggs, not eat them (unless they're rotting)

[OVT]

First dibs on progeny

[Psionic]

They're just large cherry shrimp. The eggs were only a day old I think. I'll have to check on them today. I'll try and snag pics also. They like hiding under the driftwood cave I made them. Today I gotta find them a new heater since I forgot my last one got tossed into my shrimp tank.

In my 60 gallon, they didn't mess with the large shrimp. But baby shrimp were probably devoured. Some juvies I've seen hanging out in all the moss.

These will have to do until I can find my camera again.

Him, one of his chicks, and a quick one of him and 2 of his harem as they swam away from me.


-Val

[Psionic]

Sadly, I woke up to one of the females dead. Either she got stuck or did a death dive under the driftwood.


-Val

[Psionic]

A better picture of the male


The females however still refuse to stay still for a moment. There I stand like an idiot waiting in front of the glass with my camera and they just keep zipping by right in front of me. They're doing it on purpose... I know they are.

[D3monic]

Very nice! I love the males coloration when displaying for the harem

[yellowsno]

very nice imma subscribe to see your progress

also have u tried feeding them frozen or all live foods? and keep us updated on the shrimp eating eggs situation... as i am to understand cherry shrimps shouldn't be eating eggs :P

[Psionic]

The shrimp left them alone... but the tetras didn't. I moved them from the pictured tank to the Petco bookshelf tank. The healthy female is freaking huge. I don't know if that means she's knocked up or just round. I need to gather up lots of java moss for them. I'll take a pic of her tomorrow. The wild dario female I put into my community tank. She hangs around the bottom with the other fish down there. The dario in that tank haven't bothered her. I don't know if it's because she's maybe young or that she's wild and the males aren't.

I have fed them micro worms, white worms, scuds, and copepods. I purposely over fed the tank before I put them in there to there to help get some copepods and nematodes going. I sucked up the ones I could find from other tanks and dumped them in there. I also got golden pearls off of ken's website. I'm going to give those a try tomorrow when I install their new hydro mini sponge filter.


-Val

[zoragen]

Beautiful male! And the female was a lovely blur

I can't get good pics of my fish even w/ a tripod set up & me sitting there just snapping away.

sigh...

[Psionic]

Well, they don't like golden pearls. They looked at them and then proceeded to swim away. They seem to have a liking for nematodes. I dot know of those are good for them to eat or not. I'm going to give frozen daphnia a try. They somewhat touched the live stuff. I might try and vacuum the substrate the walls in my tanks to try and get some copepods. The 5 gallon is empty now. I might put some food or a bit of green water in there to get them going.

The male is being a total jerk. He has made his home in a part of the tank with moss. Any time she comes near, she is chased away. He lets the shrimp nibble on the moss though. What a male.


-Val