Rice Fish

[Cinnebuns]

I have been planning a new 20 gallon tank. I would like to do some hands off breeding as well as a place for panda cory juveniles to grow for a few months. I also need to include some snails as I went a little overboard adding snails to my main tank. 

I had decided on gold white cloud minnows until someone brought my attention to Rice fish. Has anyone breed these before? How likely would my success rate be without using a grow out tank? Pulling and hatching eggs I'm ok with but I'm running out of growout tank space cause guppy things. 

In addition to breedability (is that a word? It is now!) I'm curious if it would be more difficult to sell. On the one hand, it's more unique so might bring a higher price and have less competition. On the other hand, less known means less people may be seeking them out. WCMM also have the added benefit of being able to be used as feeders as another sale point. 

Just wondering any input. Ty. 

[CalmedByFish]

I'm currently trying to breed medaka fry.

I use a syringe to collect the eggs and drop them into a breeding net in the same tank. The adults eagerly try to eat the fry through the barrier. My experience is very limited, but I'm guessing you could raise a couple of fry for fun in a tank heavily planted with dense things like blobs of moss. I don't think they'd breed high numbers without active intervention though.

Since my oldest fry is still very small, I can't speak to tank space overall. It's looking to me like fry would need to be at least 4 months old before they can live with the adults.

As for resale value. My LFS sells rice fish, so maybe yours would, too. And, really, I guess almost any species can be used as feeder fish if need be. 

 

[Tihshho]

I've got both some of the Orange Medaka's and some Daisy's Rice Fish. Currently only breeding the Daisy's. The babies are TINY. Eggs hatch in 2-3 weeks in 77 degree water and take to food pretty quick. Both very fine flake as well as Sera Micron. I've found hatched babies with the parents in the tank, but if I leave them there and am late to feeding them (get fed at noon on my lunch break and around 6pm) I generally won't find the baby again from the egg I missed pulling. 

Lots of cover will provide you better success with raising fry, but keep in mind that your results will be drastically different than those who are hatching eggs and rasing fry external from the parents. The other option is to fill the tank with plants past the level of a display because the function of the plants is to provide cover for the babies as well as to house nooks for food and the in tank culturing of micro fauna for the fry to eat. This is why heavily stocked tubs with Water Hyacinth, Water Lettuce, and other tick rooted floating plants support a lot of fry being reared in the tank.

Egg scattering fish as well as live bearers generally are opportunistic and canibalistic to their fry because they at the end of the day are opportunistic feeders. Unlike species that either have a specific gender raise the fry or rear the eggs till hatching, or cichlids who are communial and put effort into protecting their species, or paired species who rear and raise their fry together, you're not going to have success with large batches of babies being hatched and raised with the parents. This is why eggscatering and livebearers produce so many babies or eggs at once. The logic of their biology is to keep on the species by creating the most babies possible so statistically some will be viable as the next generation. Species who tend to rear their young with the least predation (most at least) are going to have smaller clutches of eggs with a low hatch yield.