Breeding daily egg scatterers

[tolstoy21]

What's the best way to get decent numbers of fry from fish that scatter eggs daily in small amounts (as opposed to those that spew a bazillion eggs in one go)?

I've been collecting eggs from some of my fish by using a glass dish with java moss, and this has been successful for small numbers, but this tedious and I have only so many containers to keep the variously aged juveniles in.  

Dos it make sense to just leave the adults in a tank full of java moss and leaves and other plants that offer ample hiding space, knowing some fry and eggs will get eaten, but that many will survive? Do this in a tub?

What are people's experiences with ways to maximize their breeding efforts with fish like Celestial Pearl Danio's etc?

[gjcarew]

Setting up a tank with live sphagnum seems like a successful way of doing it. I was listening to Rosario Lacorte on The Aquarist podcast and he mentioned that's how he breeds emperor (maybe it was ember?) tetras. He has a thick Jersey accent so it was a little tough to tell. The gist was that the fry can survive in the moss layer where they won't be predated on. This is the episode: https://aquariumcoop.libsyn.com/ep-86-rosario-lacorte-on-fish-food-peat-moss-and-breeding-tetras

The talk about breeding tetras came in the last 15 minutes, I believe. Shouts out to @Randyfor the podcast btw, I'm loving it!

I also found some anecdotes saying the same thing from The Krib. 

https://www.thekrib.com/Fish/tetras.html

Randy Carey wrote a book on breeding egg scatterers, and gave a talk at GSAS where he said the highest success rate was with building a false bottom on your tank for eggs to fall through, but that it is also a lot more effort. That's how Greg Sage breeds his Odessa barbs.

[tolstoy21]

On 10/20/2021 at 2:30 PM, gjcarew said:

Randy Carey wrote a book on breeding egg scatterers, and gave a talk at GSAS where he said the highest success rate was with building a false bottom on your tank for eggs to fall through, but that it is also a lot more effort. That's how Greg Sage breeds his Odessa barbs.

Thanks for the response. 

I have a false bottom setup for Odessas and get pretty large spawns using this method. They lay a good number of eggs in one go  

However, I’m working on breeding Inpaichthys Kerri right now, and want to take a crack at chili rasbioras. The tetras, at least, spawn every morning in moderate amounts (at least this has been my experience thus far). I get and raise fry, but so far just in small numbers since I don’t have the time nor containers to collect and hatch the eggs laid every day.

I was going to try to just leave the fish to their own devices over a giant bed of java moss and some catalpa leaf litter and see what comes from that.

I’ve observed that the fry like to spend their first weeks under the leaf litter, and that the tannins also help a bit with fighting back fungus. Meth blue works better in my experiments, but this requires me to collect and separate the eggs. 

Edited October 21, 2021 by tolstoy21

[tolstoy21]

@gjcarew

Thanks for linking that podcast. I just gave it a listen and it's very good. I don't find his accent that thick. I'd be inclined to say 'what accent?', but maybe that's because I also live in NJ (born and bred, Jersey Strong! and all that).  His voice reminds me of my grandfather's. Hearing his accent against @Randy's is a nice contrast in the two coasts -- patient, grizzled wisdom compared to bright-eyed enthusiasm and optimism.

I'm wondering if the sphagnum moss he uses in his tanks is live or dried? Or does it even matter? 

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

@tolstoy21hes talking about live sphagnum moss but you can use the dried but when it goes brown you have to pull it. The sphagnum will lower the pH.