What fish has been more prolific fry producers than you expected?

[mountaintoppufferkeeper]

Mine is the Pao cf palustris 

My puffer trio of 1 Male 2  Female produces however many eggs are in this cave every 14 days or so.  With 50 to 75 makimg it to pulling size once the male removes any bad ones.

When I choose to pull a portion of eggs out to breeder boxes I could end up with approximately 50 per new fry every month easily. 

Its more than I expected going in.

Anyone else have other species that really fire off for them in numbers that you didnt expect to achieve initially? Which was the most surprising success?

Im at the point with these guys where I can make the 50 puffers a month fairly easily if I had the space and chose to do so.  

[Guppysnail]

your work with and documentation of your puffer success is very interesting. Thank you for sharing. 
Lemon blue eyed Bristlenose pleco. I knew the clutch sizes going in but I had no clue once they were happy I would get 80-150 a month as just a home hobbiest not being a serious breeder. I figured I would have a bit of success and some would survive but I ended up with 90% survival and larger and larger clutches each month. Hubby was opposed to installing an Olympic swimming pool in the yard for them 🤣🤣🤣

My most surprising was finding a single Pygmy corydora baby without ever seeing eggs or breeding behavior. 

Edited February 18, 2022 by Guppysnail

[mountaintoppufferkeeper]

also  hobbyist vs serious breeder here. Though my long term goal is to get a master breeder certificate in the future  

[Torrey]

My surprise was after several years of trying to breed discus, with almost no success at hatching (laying yes. Hatching?🤣🤣🤣😆😒)

Then, when I finally got the parameters right I had an almost 100% fertile and better than 90% hatch... for 300 discus fry😳

Unexpected? Virgin births of guppies who were impregnated by a stealth male😁😅

[Jawjagrrl]

I had a good run in the 90s with my OB zebra cichlids - I was taking in a couple dozen juvies a month to my LFS. Was very sad when my female passed mysteriously.

Today it's one of my dwarf shrimp -  neocardina palmata pearl named OG. She has had 4 clutches of shrimplets since late October? She released a large batch of 30ish Jan 25th, just released easily as many today. She has lapped the other females in the tank twice over.

[B1gJ4k3]

Boesemani Rainbows. I had a group of 4 (3:1 female to male) in quarantine, so I figured I might as well throw a spawning mop in there to see if they'd do anything. I thought I'd see something on the mop and be able to pull a clutch or two of eggs. Turns out, they really get them in there where you can't see them and keep progressively laying them and they keep hatching out. I was pulling at least 10 fry a day out for about two weeks when I finally moved them into my main display tank. They're still growing out and next to impossible to count, but I'd say I've got at least 100 in my two little breeding tubs without even really trying.

[Odd Duck]

Jack Dempsey cichlids.  Not exactly shocking that they breed and lay prolifically.  Reading led me to believe 300-500 is pretty typical for first clutches, and it’s not unusual for them to eat the eggs on first few clutches.  Well, I got about 900+ in the first clutch and at least another 600+ just 5 weeks later.  I not only didn’t expect them to breed so soon after I rescued them, didn’t want them to breed, didn’t expect them to breed again so quickly, and was not at all prepared to deal with that many babies despite buying 3 additional tanks as quick as I could.  I was shocked at my survival rate and growth rate with the degree of crowding I had in the 4 tanks I had at that point, all jam packed with Jack Dempseys.

Edited February 22, 2022 by Odd Duck
Typo 🙄

[StevesFishTanks]

This was a batch of about 700.  They used both slates.

[Jawjagrrl]

On 2/19/2022 at 1:37 AM, Odd Duck said:

Well, I got about 900+ in the first clutch and at least another 600+ just 5 weeks later.  

I knew they laid more since they aren't mouth brooders (assuming), but that's mindblowingly large. What did you do with 1400 baby convicts?

[Ken Burke]

On 2/18/2022 at 12:11 PM, Guppysnail said:

your work with and documentation of your puffer success is very interesting. Thank you for sharing. 
Lemon blue eyed Bristlenose pleco. I knew the clutch sizes going in but I had no clue once they were happy I would get 80-150 a month as just a home hobbiest not being a serious breeder. I figured I would have a bit of success and some would survive but I ended up with 90% survival and larger and larger clutches each month. Hubby was opposed to installing an Olympic swimming pool in the yard for them 🤣🤣🤣

My most surprising was finding a single Pygmy corydora baby without ever seeing eggs or breeding behavior. 

Me too, ‘cept they were the chocolate variety. Took the better part of 8 months to sell them off once the grew up.  

[Odd Duck]

On 2/20/2022 at 9:00 AM, Jawjagrrl said:

I knew they laid more since they aren't mouth brooders (assuming), but that's mindblowingly large. What did you do with 1400 baby convicts?

Yep, it was pretty ridiculous for a pair of Jack Dempseys that had never bred before.

I sold a lot of them, close to 1000 of them between selling about 500 divided in 2 different batches to a wholesaler, about 300 or so at a couple different local swap meets, another 150 or so to a couple lfs in 2 different batches to each, a few other smaller sales and giveaways to individuals locally, 10 here, 20 there, 5 here, a pair there, a trio, another dozen, etc.  Then I finally started just giving them away en masse.  I had a couple different people that took a lot, about 230 for one and about 270 for the other.  It took forever to get rid of them all!  It was such a relief when the last one went.  A huge weight off my shoulders.  That was way too much of a good thing.

1. First clutch (a lot of the eggs were on the back side of this rock).

2. Daddy corralling babies from first clutch.

3. Second clutch (pic flipped itself upside down).

4. Daddy trying to keep second clutch babies inside the pot, but it wasn’t working well.

5. Pic of older fry.  This is roughly about 2/3 of the first clutch that was left after I took the second 250 to the wholesaler (so roughly 250 fry).  Sorry for the giant reflection.

Edited February 21, 2022 by Odd Duck
Add estimated number of fry in the tank at the time of the last pic

[mountaintoppufferkeeper]

Update i only pull a portion. 

Day today:  Pao cf palustris

Day 14 Coop purchased ziss breeder box. Semi permanent enough to grow algae. It  really works well for them. Feeding heavy baby brine it goes out the screen and feeds the 50 gallon of dwarf chain loach and tetra. Siphon the box daily when feeding heavy

.