Finally got some Cherry Tetras in a decent number

[tolstoy21]

Had these fish for maybe half a year or more now. 

I failed at breeding them a number of times, with the exception of getting a few surprise fry in what I thought was yet another failed breeding attempt (unbeknownst to me, a handful of fry hitched a ride into a shrimp tank on some java moss and grew out there feasting on my blue dream shrimplets).

What I have learned is that these fish stay VERY SMALL for about a month, and hide VERY, VERY WELL.  I maybe have 50-75 fry total, but honestly, I never saw more than 2 at one time before tonight.

The fry went the first few weeks eating only paramecium, then they graduated to paramecium plus banana worms and vinegar eels. Now that they are finally taking BBS, they are starting to put on size fast.

Here's a vid I took tonight after transferring them to a new grow out.

Thanks for looking.

  

Edited March 31 by tolstoy21

[Guppysnail]

That is fantastic.  It always amazes me how tiny fry can hide so well. We go to such lengths to hatch fish yet in the wild they can and do survive. 

[tike]

Curious to know what your breeding set up consists of? Size tank,decor,water parameters?

[tolstoy21]

@tike Honestly, I just spawned them the general way one spawns most egg scatterers -- 10g, false bottom for eggs to fall through, clump of java moss, water on the soft/acidic side. Nothing special. My breeders are wild caught specimens.

As with many tetras, the challenge isn't spawning them so much as feeding the fry and getting them to a size where they will take BBS.

Edited April 4 by tolstoy21

[jwcarlson]

That is awesome!  They've already got decent color on them too.

[tolstoy21]

@jwcarlson Yeah, they start to color up early on. The german breeder I watched on youtube (which I very poorly translated using you tube's closed captioning) also mentioned that as well. They redden up very early. 

I'm eager to see how many I get to adulthood as I want to put a decent sized school in my 125.

[aquatica87]

I’ve had mine for about a year now and haven’t had luck either. The eggs I find are never fertilized. What are your breeding parameters?

[tolstoy21]

On 4/10/2024 at 2:54 PM, aquatica87 said:

I’ve had mine for about a year now and haven’t had luck either. The eggs I find are never fertilized. What are your breeding parameters?

Hmmm. Not sure. I honestly don't put a lot of thought into it. My well water runs at a Gh of 9 and a Kh of 0. I will typically cut this with some RO water, but I've never measured how much. Maybe I do a 50-75% WC with straight RO to drop the Gh. But I've never proven to myself that this is even necessary. 

I do separate the males and females a week and fatten them up, before adding them to the breeding tank. I'll leave them in the breeding tank maybe 3 -4 days and then pull them.