Fish Breeding

[plawrence5]

I am curious about fish breeding- I have visions of not having to pay boo coo dollars to get fish and would like to see little fishys in my tanks. What type of envoirnment do I need to set up to breed fish such as: Yellow tangs, clarkies, damsels? I guess I have always been somewhat under the impression if I get 2 or 3 of the same fish there almost certainly has to be a male and a female and they would just mate when the time was right. Obviously there are other fish etc. that will eat fish eggs and yatta yatta yatta.. what do I have to do to breed my fish?

 

[Andrew]

First off, no one has ever breed yellow tangs in a home aquarium. Thus is why all Yellow tangs are collected from Hawaii. Next off.... here's a whole forum dedicated to the breeding of fish:

http://reefcentral.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=86


Also, breeding fish isn't cheap. Requires a lot of skill and time.

 

[plawrence5]

I see you are from Ohio Andrew.. where abouts?

 

[Andrew]

Lima

 

[plawrence5]

How odd. We are only 15miles from eachother, I'm sure you realized that already. Do you shop at Pet Supplies Plus?

 

[papagimp]

Andrew, I'll tell ya this much, breeding marine fish is far different from breeding freshwater fish. It's not like having a tank full of guppies where in a couple months you'll have all the guppies you'd ever want. I have only successfully bred and raised 2 pairs of Bangaii Cardinals, One pair has been given to a friend, while I still have the other pair. I'll start by saying the bangaii's are one of the easiest of marine fish to breed due to the fact that they release free swimming fry (mouthbrooders) which cuts out the need for culturing rotifers and similar small food sources. These get started on baby brine shrimp and cyclopeeze from the day their released. So that said, I had roughly 9 spawnings, about 4 of those resulted in a release of around 12-20babies each, and of all those babies only the 4 (two pairs) have been raised succesfully. All the rest were lost to misc. reasons. The cost wasn't so bad, but did require a separate tank setup, phytoplankton cultures, brine shrimp cultures (or at least daily hatchings of bbs), this all added more water changes to my routine, multiple daily feedings, more time than I really spent on just my reef tank as it is anyways. So please don't expect to be able to fully stock your tank for dirt cheap simply by breeding the fish It's not that simple. but I do encourage you to make the attempt at breeding marine fish, captive bred and raised specimens will be far hardier and help to discourage overcollection practices. Which can be very important, especially for species like the bangaii's which have a very limited geographical location in the wild. Overcollection can easily put these guys on an endangered species list in the future.

 

[Andrew]

I go to PSP once in awhile but they pretty much have no clue what they are doing. I prefer to shop at Phishy Business in Columbus.

 

[papagimp]

Oh yeah, all that took roughly 1 year as well.

 

[Andrew]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10257640#post10257640 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by papagimp
Andrew, I'll tell ya this much...

Was this post for me?

 

[plawrence5]

If you head down to dayton, a pretty decent place to buy fish is Gerbers Fish Warehouse... the place looks like crap but they have pretty good quality fish, and lots of them- from sharks, to Morish Idles etc.
Back to the topic at hand though..
If I were to attempt to breed a fish.. what kind of set up would I want to create for them? Should I exclude them to a seperate tank..how long does it take.. is there a certain time of year they would breed?

 

[Andrew]

Yea, I've been there a few times and their prices aren't really that great. The type of set up needed will depend on what fish you want to breed.

 

[papagimp]

Depends on the fish you want to breed Plawrence5. A bangaii cardinal can spawn and release his babies and them be on their own in about a month (give or take a few days) while other species can take twice as long and others like clowns can spawn every 14-15 days but take about a year to raise. Way to many variables for a loaded question like that.

I have had more spawnings in my display tank but did move the breeding pair to their own tank for simplicity of dealing with the fry and feedings (live foods are better for breeding IMO) Have a separte tank for the new babies, and have a seperate tank for growing the babies from juvi's until they get sold or whatever.

The breeding forum here has loads of good information on breeding setups and with as many breeders that their are going their, there are just as many different types of setups. I'd recommend you look through the many diffferent methods used and find one that seems appealing for your needs and capabilites.

 

[plawrence5]

Yeah.. I didn't look before I lept apparently.. I didn't know there was a breeding forum. Which is comforting.. it is so complicated that there is a seperate forum just to discuss it! I'll trying reading up in there and see what I can find out.

 

[papagimp]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10257657#post10257657 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Andrew
Was this post for me?

My bad, lol. Guess I didn't scroll enough to the top of the page to see the original posters name uh? Oh well, hope you enjoyed the info as well Andrew