tetra's any kind

[cashay]

Are they egg layers?

[kagome]

Yes, I found a quick article. There is a breeding section midway down.

fish.suite101.com/article.cfm/care_and_breeding_of_tetras

[goldenpuon]

Yes they lay eggs. However, there are so many tetra species that there may be a few exceptions I have not heard of but from what I've heard they lay eggs.

[murdock6701]

what are you thinking about Sherry?

[cashay]

I was just curious.... ;D

[eve]

here is an article on breeding them i wrote about 2 years ago already




Breeding Small Characins
By Evelyn
Copyright 2007

What you will need:

• 1 breeding pair of course (they're easy to sex since the female is more rounded then the male

• 5 gallon tank

• Black spray paint

• Piece of cardboard big enough to cover the front of your tank

• 3 day old water, which is a bit acid and soft (pH 5.5 - 7, dH 1-2, temperature 75 degrees)

• A regular lid but without the lights being on, especially not once the eggs are laid

• A sponge filter which should be matured in a different tank until you will need it for the spawning tank

• A self made spawning mop

• Some cabomba grass

• About 1 inch gravel for the bottom

• And at least a 20 gallon outgrow tank

Spawning them:

• Take your 5 gallon tank and spray 3 outsides with black spray paint, the front site leave just as it is, it will only be covered with the cardboard piece, set the tank up 3 days before you put in your breeding pair, with gravel, cabomba and the spawning mob.

• Condition your male and female separate with high protein food such as frozen blood worms and dried frozen brine shrimp for at least 1 week.

• Once your female is very round, you will know that she's ready to be spawned.

• Put your breeding pair into the tank in the evening and once they're settled you will notice that the male will chase the female around the plant and the spawning mop.

• The next day the eggs should be laid and you can take out the adults and black out the tank completely with the piece of cardboard, leave the tank just alone and in peace.



Caring for the fry:

• The fry will hatch about of 30- 40 hours later, and will be free swimming after another 4 days.

• Now you can remove the front cover, put your well matured sponge filter in set on low and start feeding your fry with Infusoria or Liquid fry food, but don't feed them too much, because you won't touch the water for another 10 days, you don't clean their tank in the first 2 weeks of their life.

• When the fry is about 1 week old you can start feeding them with newly hatched Baby Brine shrimp.

• When they're about 2 weeks old, you can start introducing powdered flake food.

• Now you can start doing partial water changes, but only about 1 cup full a day and gradually moving up to 25%, but don't forget you will need to replace the water with the same acid and soft water, as you have in there now.

• 3 days before you move your fry will be moved into the outgrow tank, you will setup the 20 gallon tank the same way you have your spawning tank, that means the same acid and soft water.

• You can move your fry into the outgrow tank when they're about 8-9 weeks old, the best way to do so, is by taking out the sponge filter and the mop, removing the lid from the spawning tank and submerge the spawning tank slowly into the outgrow tank. Turn it a bit to the side to help the fry to emerge into the bigger tank, as soon as all fry are out take out the spawning tank right away.

• Once they're settled in, like 3 days later you can start doing every other day partial water changes of 5% with a gravel siphon, and replacing it with just regular tap water which should be aged for 24 hours and of course be treated with conditioner. Gradually increase the amount of water you change, but think that it should be increased slowly in a period of the next 3 weeks.

• Also at 9 weeks you can start introducing regular flake food.

• When they're about 12 weeks old, they should be eating just regular flake food and ordinary harder water, just like all your other fish

• At this point they're also big enough to be sold and you should have a batch of about 4 dozens of fry, if you did everything right and where lucky enough to raise the fry to be a juvenile. If you want to have more then just 4 dozens of fry, just do the whole conditioning process for a week after spawning them and spawn them right after a week, but only if you have enough tanks and space to do so.

They're a species which are very hard to breed, but once you get it done, it's amazing to watch them grow. You will need to have lots of patience to breed them.

Good luck doing so.

Also please use caution and still research the certain species you want to breed, since there are still slight differences on rearing them and what water quality it needs to be!!

[goldenpuon]

Great article Eve. Very detailed and well-written. I'm sure it will be a great help to anyone wanting to breed tetras. Way to go!

[eve]

thanks renee
it still needs updating though, especially with some pics
it's been 2 years already since i have written that article

[goldenpuon]

You're welcome. I will use your guide if I ever get a chance to breed tetras.

[Carl]

Once you get new pictures, this would make an excellent post to the EA blog where it will likely get more views due to general internet searches.

Carl

[fishfever]

I have a small female Buenos Aires tetra that is very round and quite a bit wider than when we first got her. One morning about a week ago the male B.A. tetra was chasing her around the tank. She would swim and hide in a plant, but then come out again and let the male chase her. Sometimes the male would follow her up into the plant and rub against her. This went on for a while but we only saw it happen one day and did not repeat AFAIK. Lately she has been briefly chasing the male a bit (and also a lamp eye tetra male).

Since she is still wide I'm assuming she is still holding her eggs? According to the article the eggs were released when the male was rubbing against her a week ago but why is she still so wide? Is it too late to move her to a breeding tank? I have a 10g tank with nothing else in it. Or should I do something in the main tank? We've been through 6 livebearer pregnancies and they didn't really require much of anything other than moving the fry to another tank once they were born.

[eve]

if you really want to breed them, i would put a pair of them into the 10 gallon tank you have available
but make sure you have everything the way they like it though

[fishfever]

Eve, I read your very detailed instructions; sounds like you really know the ropes on breeding tetras! I had to google the spawning mop as I had never heard of it. Probably I have something similar already but maybe not as suitable. It's a plastic plant mat that you can cut to size and either float it (as I do) or use gravel to hold it down. It seemed to work pretty well as a hiding place for the livebearer fry (even grown-up fry still seem to like it) but I don't know if it's suitable for egg layers.

I wasn't really planning to breed the tetras but since the female is so round and plump I figured I had to do something? If nothing is done, will she just deposit her (I assume) unfertilized eggs and that's the end of it? How often will she get round and plump like this? I've never noticed any other tetras (we have 3 kinds) get round and plump yet I'm sure we have some other females.

So I'm guessing that little chasing/mating ritual we witnessed a little over a week ago was premature since when the male was chasing and rubbing she was not nearly as round and plump as she is now so there were probably no eggs ready. I wouldn't mind having a few baby tetras since we've never had egg layer fry but is there a way to make the main tank more suitable for breeding (for example making the mop, changing the water more often, feeding more live food, temperature, light, slight pH adjust, etc.)? It's really hard catching the B.A. tetras (esp. the male who is an absolute speed demon!) since they are so fast and agile. The last time I had to catch one I had to pull most everything out of the aquarium and drain more than half the water. Then with a large net I still worked up a sweat and got water all over the place trying to catch the bugger! We've already decided if we have more fry (well over 100 livebearers) we are going to let them fend for themself in the main tank with plant cover. Of course we said that every pregnancy and ended up rescuing most of them anyway once we saw them. ;-)

[cashay]

Apr 21, 2009 12:34:30 GMT -5 eve said:

here is an article on breeding them i wrote about 2 years ago already




Breeding Small Characins
By Evelyn
Copyright 2007

What you will need:

• 1 breeding pair of course (they're easy to sex since the female is more rounded then the male

• 5 gallon tank

• Black spray paint

• Piece of cardboard big enough to cover the front of your tank

• 3 day old water, which is a bit acid and soft (pH 5.5 - 7, dH 1-2, temperature 75 degrees)

• A regular lid but without the lights being on, especially not once the eggs are laid

• A sponge filter which should be matured in a different tank until you will need it for the spawning tank

• A self made spawning mop

• Some cabomba grass

• About 1 inch gravel for the bottom

• And at least a 20 gallon outgrow tank

Spawning them:

• Take your 5 gallon tank and spray 3 outsides with black spray paint, the front site leave just as it is, it will only be covered with the cardboard piece, set the tank up 3 days before you put in your breeding pair, with gravel, cabomba and the spawning mob.

• Condition your male and female separate with high protein food such as frozen blood worms and dried frozen brine shrimp for at least 1 week.

• Once your female is very round, you will know that she's ready to be spawned.

• Put your breeding pair into the tank in the evening and once they're settled you will notice that the male will chase the female around the plant and the spawning mop.

• The next day the eggs should be laid and you can take out the adults and black out the tank completely with the piece of cardboard, leave the tank just alone and in peace.



Caring for the fry:

• The fry will hatch about of 30- 40 hours later, and will be free swimming after another 4 days.

• Now you can remove the front cover, put your well matured sponge filter in set on low and start feeding your fry with Infusoria or Liquid fry food, but don't feed them too much, because you won't touch the water for another 10 days, you don't clean their tank in the first 2 weeks of their life.

• When the fry is about 1 week old you can start feeding them with newly hatched Baby Brine shrimp.

• When they're about 2 weeks old, you can start introducing powdered flake food.

• Now you can start doing partial water changes, but only about 1 cup full a day and gradually moving up to 25%, but don't forget you will need to replace the water with the same acid and soft water, as you have in there now.

• 3 days before you move your fry will be moved into the outgrow tank, you will setup the 20 gallon tank the same way you have your spawning tank, that means the same acid and soft water.

• You can move your fry into the outgrow tank when they're about 8-9 weeks old, the best way to do so, is by taking out the sponge filter and the mop, removing the lid from the spawning tank and submerge the spawning tank slowly into the outgrow tank. Turn it a bit to the side to help the fry to emerge into the bigger tank, as soon as all fry are out take out the spawning tank right away.

• Once they're settled in, like 3 days later you can start doing every other day partial water changes of 5% with a gravel siphon, and replacing it with just regular tap water which should be aged for 24 hours and of course be treated with conditioner. Gradually increase the amount of water you change, but think that it should be increased slowly in a period of the next 3 weeks.

• Also at 9 weeks you can start introducing regular flake food.

• When they're about 12 weeks old, they should be eating just regular flake food and ordinary harder water, just like all your other fish

• At this point they're also big enough to be sold and you should have a batch of about 4 dozens of fry, if you did everything right and where lucky enough to raise the fry to be a juvenile. If you want to have more then just 4 dozens of fry, just do the whole conditioning process for a week after spawning them and spawn them right after a week, but only if you have enough tanks and space to do so.

They're a species which are very hard to breed, but once you get it done, it's amazing to watch them grow. You will need to have lots of patience to breed them.

Good luck doing so.

Also please use caution and still research the certain species you want to breed, since there are still slight differences on rearing them and what water quality it needs to be!!

Thank you for all the details that was great! Wish me luck!

[cashay]

Mar 20, 2009 15:27:38 GMT -5 kagome said:

Yes, I found a quick article. There is a breeding section midway down.

fish.suite101.com/article.cfm/care_and_breeding_of_tetras

Dang it ,, Told me page not found. couldn't read it.

[cashay]

Mar 20, 2009 17:08:58 GMT -5 murdock6701 said:

what are you thinking about Sherry?

Just some tetra's to begin with. The live bearers are easy lol they do all the work but I want to see how successful I can be.

[devonjohnsgard]

Good luck! People may not see your responses since there from 2009!