Raising 112 souls (and counting)

As you all know I love my Rainbows. Up until now I have never perposley tryed to breed them. I have 3 boesemani that I raised after saving them from the sump ages ago.

During the past month I actually desided to see if I can achieve something with my Kutubus, Melanotaenia lacustris. Not only are they exceptionally beautifull but most of the times I open the curtains of the fish room, on water change days, the two males start sparring and shortly after the female gets her share of the action.

With a lot of luck, and very little efford, I netted and removed the 3 (foto 1) to a 2ft breeder tank with a piece of wood covered in moss. It broke my heart seeing them squashed together in the back corner of the tank. But descided to give it a week and see what happened. During this week I never noticed them leaving the back of the tank. In the end they were in this tank for 2 weeks before I moved them to a standard 2ft tank, moving the wood with moss with them. As soon as they were in the tank the males started displaying as if there was no stress caused by the last 2 weeks of being clonfined. At the end of the week I noticed white furry eggs all over the moss. Fungus!!!!!!!! Ok that will be the end that then. On saterday the 16th of June I returned them to the 4ft tank feeling bad that I had punished them for 3 weeks for nothing.

As it was a public holiday, and me not working, I moved my normal sunday wc to saterday and desided to rescape the 2ft the rainbow were in last.

Almost automaticly starting to do wc on the breeding rack, without noticing much more than crap and uneaten food. I stuck the pipe in the 4th tank, 1st one the rainbows were in. After draining about 10% of the water I noticed some black lines in the tank that were not shrimp. Ripped the pipe out the tank, and almost dumped the bucked of water on the floor. I had fry in the tank!!!!!!!!! After sitting there for about 15 minuts, trying to count the 9 fry, wc and half empty tank far from my mind, it dawned on me that there was actually spawning in this tank and these eggs must have fallen on the bottom of the tank. I was in 7th heaven. At least 9 fry was worth the 3 weeks of trying.

Sunday came. Ripped the wood out. Drain tank. Remove substrate. New substrate in, rescape wood, plant some crypts. Get the tank just right for their new inhabitans in a week or 2. Move the tank to the back of my mind and let it settle.

Tuesday evening I went to feed the fish and checked on water levels. When topping up the 2ft I notice fry swimming at the top. More! This can't be happening.
I realize that I need to move the fry from this tank as the water is way too acidic to what they prefer and should be in. Now if you look at a day old rainbow fry you will notice that they are slightly smaller than guppy fry (foto 2, coin is under the glass). No net will keep that in. With glass in hand I scooped them out and transfered them to the other 9. Tuesday evening I had 51. Wednesday there were some more which brought the number up to 95. This evening I got another 17. Standing at 112 fry I'm overwhelmed. Broke through all my expectations.

Currently I'm feeding them 2ml of egg yoke desolved in tank water in the mornings and again at night. How many of them there still are (foto 3) I don't know and only time will tell.

Thanks for reading this massive long intro to a hopefully sucsessfull raising of a school. I will update as things develop and enjoy the journey. Maby somebody can learn something from my mistakes or sucsess. Only time will tell. Thanks

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Well Congratulations!!

You have a lot of grand kids!!

That is absolutely awesome @pierreschoonraad !!
Wish you all the best.. will be great to follow their growth and development.

 

Congtatulations.
Now you just need to do it with the Boesemani as well.

I have found that Hikari First Bites works well for this size of fry.
It ranges in size from about the size of Baby Brine Shrimp to even smaller, and all the fry I have fed it to, have taken it.
Alternatively morning and evening feedings of Microworms, with a Hikari feeding around midday will also work.

 

This is fantastic, congrats!

 

Good luck Pierre

 

How cool is that ... love it!!!!!

 

Thanks everyone. Yes I'm slightly in the deep end here if most of them survive. Already looking at getting a 3ft to grow them out in. Frustrating thing with rainbows is their growth rate, whuch is extremely slow. At 8 weeks they are about the size of guppy fry.

Also looking at getting a huge variaty of live foods for them as that will improve their survival. White worms are top of the list for now.

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Ok that is crazy slow ... I have never tried to do this so all I can say is good luck.

Later Ferdie

 

Congrats. Good luck with raising the fry. Rainbows are frustratingly slow growers but its worth it at the end of the day.

 

So the numbers don't stop here. Got another 8 fry so I'm standing at 120 not out.

Out of interest to anyone planning on breeding rainbows regarding the fry, o yes I did a lot of reading after the first fry popped up. The first 24 hours are the most crusial in the fry's survival. Due to the fact that they have a very small egg sack it gets used up during this time and they need to start eating. If the fry is in an established tank this shouldn't be a issue as there are various forms of critters for them to munch on. The fry will stick to the top 1/4 of the water and will only start dwelling lower later on. So if you have a hob, turn the flow down, a sponge filter, turn the air lower, as this will cause too much turbulance for them to handle.

During their first few weeks/months it is good to get the tank temperature between 25 and 28 as this improves growth rate, temp should also be as stable as possible as fluctuations might kill them. My tank is currently running at 25 as that is a temp that I am comfortable with sustaining. There is a heater in the tank but the fish room gets heated at night with a pannel heater that heats up the room to 24 which gives the heater a bit of a break fighting the cold winter.

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Its very interesting @pierreschoonraad,

If they that slow growers, i suppose the few you see for sale at 7/8cm must be at least a year old which probably explains why you dont find them for sale in abundance

Hahah wonder how many you going to end up with!!

 

I guess that you might be right @MariaS about the age they end up in the pet shops. I actually never looked at the other 3 boesemanis as closely to record their growth. This time around I will be able to get a better idea.

Regarding the total amount I will have have in the end, at this moment your guess is as good as mine. Perspectives change when numbers go up. When I got the first 9 I was extatic. If I could raise only 5 I will add them to the 4ft and have a nice school of 8 Kutubus. Then the numbers started jumping and I realized that now I have a crap load of fry. To raise 5/9 in a 2ft breeder tank, hight is the same as a 1ft, shouldn't pose a problem. Raising 120 with only 8 2ft breeders at my disposal had the alarm bells ringing. It became very clear why most fish farms breeds their fish in dams just due to the sheer volume of fry they need to handle.

Being almost 2 years into a new strain breeding with my endler hybrits, and relatively close to my target, I will have to make space for these guys. To give them a fair chance I will have to get a 3ft tank for them as growout tank but will have to sacrifice 3 of the breeder tanks in the prosess. Concidering their slow growth and if all survive, this will be in about 2 months from now. So the endlers will be in a slight hold pattern for a while but will still be going.

And then the brain starts working. Next up the Boesemani.

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Ok I have officially lost count now. Moved another 12 or 15 fry. Takes me to over 130.

Got my hands on some Dario fry food for egg layers today, yes yes I know. Unfortunately with working retail hours, there is very little time to run between all the pet shops. I will be giving small amounts of this with the egg yokes for the time being just to give a bit of variation. Getting some micro worm culture next week saterday. That should have me sorted while I will get some other small live foods going.

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Just a short video of the countless fry.




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Shoh so many of them!

 

As you said - now for the Boesemani.
You seem to have found an easy way to get them to scatter eggs, without the eggs all being eaten.
Good luck with raising all the fry.

 

Thanks @Pezulu. Luck played a big part here. I can only assume that during the 3 weeks that the parents were in the tank there were multiple spawns, of which they might have eaten some of the earlier hatched fry.

Will defnitly do the Boesemanis next, or the Western male I have if only I can find females for him as lately it seems that the lfs get supplied with males only. This will only happen after I have raised thes fry to sellable size, 6 to 8 months. Will use the 3 ft raising tank for this as the Boesimani is about 12cm and under no conditions will I put them in a 2ft breeder tank just to satisfy my needs. The standard 2ft will be in use by the Crossband Chocolate Gouramis I'm getting next week so that tank won't be available for them.

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hmm did not know this ...



19:30 and a bit on ... she talks about UV with rainbow fish ...

Later Ferdie

 

Thank @f-fish. Never new that Diana Walstad had a soft spot for Rainbows. From what I heard, from her my next investment, harware wise, will be a uv light.

On the subject of uv lights. Will it be as effective if I diy a uv light above the return compartment of my sump, blanking off the sides to restrict the light, compared to the inline options available?

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hmmm have not looked at DIY UV light - but remember somewhere somebody saying it is contact time that makes the inline option so viable.

Just remember UV light is very bad for your eyes ... so what ever you do, please make sure your are never exposed to it.

This might be an overkill https://thepoolteam.co.za/collections/ultra-zap/products/uv-8w-complete ..

Later Ferdie