breeding selection of FW fish

[Buddha_Red]

Hi,

What fish are right to be breed? i am not talking about bringing more common fish to the world. Which fish almost needs to be bred.

I am not looking to be rich off them, i just wish to raise uncommon fish to produce more adaptable fish fo aquariums.

thanks for any ideas you may have. I will take extreme good care and dedicate mysel tothem if i ever start to breed anything. I will have the tanks and all the gear before i attemp such a important thing.

[crazyred]

I've heard that cherry barbs are so rare in the wild that they are almost exclusively tank bred, but you would be in great shape if you could manage to breed zebra plecos. I know they are expensive as all get out, but the import of wild species has been banned and the reason they are worth so much is due to the rarity of them. If you could breed them that would be awesome. They are one beautiful pleco that stays very small (4-5")

[lloyd berg]

take a good look at how breeding dogs are managed and then reflect the same ideals to your fish. there are some who want 'old school' blood lines where the resemblence to history is most important. then you get the 'fad' group who love the new (hybrid) stuff. let me hazzard a guess that you would not be interested in hybrids. lol.
you start with the mutts (pardon the expression) for practice and experience. some like the live bearers like guppies and mollies while others focus on mouth brooders(africans). egg layers are advanced. no sense in hatching eggs if you can't keep fry alive.
as confidence grows you will start to look for (or it will find you) that magnificent species that blows you away...... to be continued.

[lloyd berg]

are cherry barbs a hybrid or an original wild? i suspect most tanked fish at a lfs are hybrid. some body set me straight.

[crazyred]

I'm not sure. I don't think they're a hybrid because there are still some in the wild, they have just been thinned out due to aquarium trade I imagine. I can't imagine what would be bred together to get a cherry barb....they are very unique in the barb family. Not anything like tiger, tinfoils, or Odessas.....especially in body shape and aggressiveness. The only reason they are classified as barbs is because they have the little "barb" whiskers next to their mouths.

[MalawiCichlidBreeder]

Buddha, if you are interested in some very very very rare fish I can forward you the contact information of someone I know. He breeds livebearers from Mexico that are now extinct in the wild. I am told that only he and a couple other people are propagating the species by captive breeding. He said that they are not gorgeous looking fish, but he has dedicated a large amount of his life to keeping these species alive.

Apparently Green Peace and a few other organizations have been harrassing him to let them back in the wild and whatnot.. its funny because where these fish are supposed to live are riddled with toxins and will kill them almost instantly. The guys name is Brian Thompson and has been published in hundreds of aquarium articles and I can almost bet you can find more about it online.

If you are interested I will talk to him when I see him next to see if it is okay that I forward all the information over to you..

Cheers,

J

[Buddha_Red]

oh please! i would really love contact with a person like that. I can try and make a deal for breeding groups. I know it will be expensive but i will dedicate a minimum of a 55g tank to them and a 10g fry tank/ juvi tank.

i am a real believer of tryoing to save a species. I do not want to prevert a species, just make tank bread fish. hehe i will setup a system on my pourch if i have to. I will take it very seriously.

Emal me anytime you like.

I need all the contacts i can get. I decided to stop the salt idea and focus on my fresh path. I am learning salt but i am not ready to support that level of fish care.

thanks so much

Shane

[Buddha_Red]

i would love to hear more suggestions. I want to preserve the lines of fine fish. I do not wish to cross anything. See i do not want to bring mollies into this world because they are not needed and end up going to aquariums that dont understand fish. they are often flushed down the toliet.

I wan't to start with a peaceful fish that is uncommon at least. Something that will improve the local shops without being a zillion bucks. I am looking for zebra plecos i just cannot get a comfirmed set of male and femail of the species. I am willing to spend some money to get a chance to raise them.

I will put this much effort into the clowns. its unlikely to spawn them but i will try. Any suggestions would be great. I am seeing the neon tetras starting to court. I am ging to put them into a breeding net i bought from wally world if i start to see a preggo fish.. I bought some java moss online. its a great spawn matt.

I am wanting to limit my breeding to exceptible levels. i will care for a certain amount that can live well as they grow up until its time to sell them. I want to be a pure breder. What can you shggest? i thought about guppies since they are easy but my current is too much for them and i cant stand mollies. they disrupt my tank too much.

thanks gang!!

[Buddha_Red]

what fish is not ultra rare that most lfs's you go to dont have? I know live bearers are my best bet, but i cannot raise guppies or mollies. Anything else along those lines? I do not mind paying my dues, i just do not want 100 fish that no one wants. They deserve a good home.

or how about htis, what peaceful fish did you successfuly breed?

[lloyd berg]

do you like catfish with a unique breeding habit? take a look at synodontis multipunctatus. they are an african catfich that are rare enough to hold their own price wise. nice looking,too.

[crazyred]

If you can ever find these fish to buy and breed you would have tons of people, including me, beating a path to your door:

http://www.aquahobby.com/gallery/e_zebraoto.php

They're zebra oto's and they are very rare.......the guy that gave me the link said he's only seen it on very rare occasion at aquabid.com. Wow....now that's a fish!

[DevinJM]

yes ottos, because most that you find in lfs are wild captured and have poor survival rated due to the capturing methods. YOU CAN DO IT!

[Buddha_Red]

oh! i had not thought of that. that is perfect. i love otto cats bigtime. Now i just have to learn to sex them. thanks for the idea, i would love to breed a stronger otto, its unacceptable for half to die when you buy them.

I need some for my tank anyways, they are very good workers. I have always had a few. My 1 year old big otto died the other day. I think it was plain old age. he was very healthy that was for sure.

[DevinJM]

Yay, one you start, you can never stop becaus a good source is hard to find, and sorry to hear about your elderly otto. And best of luck.

[crazyred]

Put me down for a school of at least three if you can get them and get them to breed. That is the cutest oto I've ever seen!!! Why do the little cuties have to be so darn rare?? :rolleyes:

[Buddha_Red]

thanks a bunch. I am not sure if i can pull of spawning them in my big tank. I will need to trade in the gold ghormis and use that tank as a breeder tank.

Do botia eat eggs? i know they eat everything else!
Any breeding information in general you have would be great. Any favorite threads? i just need to get setup for breeding in general, i only have a breeding net.

[Jenn]

This is why I bought my Paratilapia Polleni. They are on the Red List. Moving on from breeding livebearers, then Jacks. Now that they are all healthy, I have my fingers crossed.

[Buddha_Red]

i think i am going to try and breed regular old oto cats until i can find rare ones. i want to get my feet wet (pardon the pun) breeding, but as i said, no one wants mollies these days and i hate to think im adding to the over population of this species.

[DevinJM]

Here are a few links, and I would use your 29 (or whatever it is, I can't recall your small one) and plant it and adjust the paremters to their liking to help raise the fry, and then you could probably remove the parents or insert a divider. I would remove. http://www.thekrib.com/Fish/otocinclus.html
http://www.otocinclus.com/breeding.html
http://www.fishprofiles.com/articles/freshwater/oto.asp Need more? HTH

[Hic]

WOW! I haven't been on the forum for weeks and everything changed! Peoples names, pictures and other stuff! :eek:

[Buddha_Red]

i bought all the oto cats in petco last night. they only had four but they are nice and healthy. they insta love my aquarium. i am noticing some mating behavior already. The lower PH has really improved my fish. all of them seem more relaxed since i added the texas holey rock which is limestone. no PH crashes or anything. very smooth transition actually.

I plan to keep them in my 55g for a while, i plan to cycle a 29 gallon and leave it running a while before i add breeding groups of oto cats. I plan a species tank only and i will get a glass devider and/or use my breeding net if i find some eggs in the open.

Speaking of which, i want to give the otocinclus premimum algae food. I am about the only person that wants algae in the tank. What kind of food is actually good and gives 100% of their needs? i will supplement with zicunii (sp?) and bloodworms but i just do not trust the algae wafers in the stores. Only the SAE eats them. Is there a fresh or process to feed them? Would the introduction of small amounts of green water aid or totally trash my tank?

wardley has horrible algae wafers and teriamin bits are good but not high enough for their needs. I am a strong believer in giving all my fish what they need.

[crazyred]

My pleco loves his Hikari sinking algae wafers, and I think they are a good brand. I did manage to find them at Walmart, but they also have them at my LFS. I believe Hikari is a good brand anyway......the other fish love it too! The little dummies think they're bottom feeders....all of them. So once in while I give them a spirulina tab that sticks to the glass....can't think of the brand name right now.....will check when I get home (something I found at the LFS when I asked for spirulina flakes they didn't have any). The pleco must like that too because it is always gone in the morning as is the wafer. just my $0.02

[MalawiCichlidBreeder]

Im going to talk to a few people for you today Buddha, I am heading back to hamilton for the night and all of my solid connections live in the area. I am planning on talking to a few breeders for Lloyd and will bring up your questions aswell.

Blue Ram plecos are a hot commodity and sell for around 50-100 C$ at stores in my area. Congo Tetras are also VERY popular with fish stores but are veeerrryyy hard to breed.

Also Buddha, if you are totally serious about breeding fish on a large scale that are somewhat rare and dead sexy I will see what I can do about helping you. If you want to do that full-time we can talk about a business plan and maybe I can see about getting some equipment and bring them down to you. I am very interested about wholesaling fish and would be very interested in helping you start something up and getting lines of distribution open for you. I already ahve about 10-15 fishstores that will buy from me without question however I cannot satisfy all their needs with my current operation. I do not have the time to do it full-time unfortunately since I need rediculous grades for getting into lawschool.

Anyway, I always get too far ahead of myself.

I am going to jump in the shower, shave, then head back to hamilton and talk to a few people. I guess we will see what comes up from that.

I will keep in touch,

J
(and yes, MCB is fine lloyd)

[Buddha_Red]

i really appreciate it, i want everyones opinions on this and yours are worth investigation. I know they make good frozen products. i have a hard time finding them local. I go with aunt sallys frozen bloodworms. The fish LOVE them.

[MalawiCichlidBreeder]

I have bloodworms coming out of my... freezer.. because thats where I store them.. :D

Hikari had a really good sale on recently and I bought 10lbs of them for just over 70$, its going to last ages and I feed them to the fish almost every other day.

Mysis shrimp are solid too, and so are krill - keep in mind that some fish are like 'what the heck is this thing!!!' though.

I like buying food for my fishies, they are so happy when I give them something new. :)

[Buddha_Red]

Im going to talk to a few people for you today Buddha, I am heading back to hamilton for the night and all of my solid connections live in the area. I am planning on talking to a few breeders for Lloyd and will bring up your questions aswell.

Blue Ram plecos are a hot commodity and sell for around 50-100 C$ at stores in my area. Congo Tetras are also VERY popular with fish stores but are veeerrryyy hard to breed.

Also Buddha, if you are totally serious about breeding fish on a large scale that are somewhat rare and dead sexy I will see what I can do about helping you. If you want to do that full-time we can talk about a business plan and maybe I can see about getting some equipment and bring them down to you. I am very interested about wholesaling fish and would be very interested in helping you start something up and getting lines of distribution open for you. I already ahve about 10-15 fishstores that will buy from me without question however I cannot satisfy all their needs with my current operation. I do not have the time to do it full-time unfortunately since I need rediculous grades for getting into lawschool.

Anyway, I always get too far ahead of myself.

I am going to jump in the shower, shave, then head back to hamilton and talk to a few people. I guess we will see what comes up from that.

I will keep in touch,

J
(and yes, MCB is fine lloyd)



i will be giving Oto cat breeding a try. I can see where i can do some good and learn the lessions i need to learn before i go with the high end fish that i one day wish to have. I need to pay my dues before i go with a large system, but i really need to keep in contact with you. You have what i need.

Health and standards are important to me. I am limiting the operation of max two 29g fully planted with complete substrate of java moss and normal plants, holey rock for PH adjustment. the oto's really seem to love my tank. common play sand for the substrate, i dont like cleaning gravel. I like cleaning sand better since i have it in my big tank. i will make sure to always have them cycled.

I will start with one tank 29g, upgrading to two of them.One tank for breeding seperated with glass panel when time.Plenty of food and bringing them to healthy fish. I will feed the fry and do anything i need to. Total bio type aquariums for increased stability.

i am Saving the 55g for special breeding. A species tank which would really improve a breeding stock. Quality, Health, Buddha Red's way. i am very serious about improving the line of a fish, making them more adaptable to aquariums is very important to me. The hobby needs serious breeders that care about how every single fish is, too many oto cats die in import which is unacceptable to me. They are such good fish to have, they dont cause any problems and always work.

I am interested in your dealings very much. I am totally serious so lets talk.
buddha_red@sbcglobal.net

When i can, i will be with yoU!

[DevinJM]

hey shane, you do realise that the texas holey rock will only raise your kh and ph, and not lower it right? because if you are aming for a stable low ph, that is not the best stuff to keep in your tank.

[Buddha_Red]

dangit, i do that. i think one way and write the exact opposite. My fish are better in slightly higher not lower, they act more sluggish in my normal GH and KH. i raised it a bit, and increased the kh and gh and it really has made a difference. I have seen the botia gaining weight, the whole tank seems more well fed. The clowns are the puppy dogs of the fish world. where one goes, they all go. its a dog pile everywhere they go. I call them "the fellas"

I watched my fish very close and i have not seen any danger signs, oh and believe me, i was a worry wart about that.

The botia and even the other fish are much brighter and more playful than they were. the neon tetras, and the oto cats are reacting by showing some breeding behavior. the chase or postering that most fish do, i have observed this in both lately. The oto cats are so active, i watched them exibit behavior like breeding. The engagements and swim patterns were the same.

i am adding java moss matts which is perfect for oto cat eggs. I plan to seperate btw. the neons need darkness, light will kill the eggs so i am not focusing on them. I just enjoy them.

I really appreciate you letting me know, if i wasnt doing what i intended you would have had my back. :AP