How do I breed white cloud minnows

[TJ _isme]

I’m am wanting to breed white cloud minnows, i am going to use a 20 gallon tank with a sponge filter and I want to use another 20 gallon tank as a grow out so I have room for a lot of the white clouds. My tap water has a ph of 7.8 and the water if fairly hard, it’s not liquid rock but it is pretty hard.

[PedroPete]

Here are some tips I found for you 👍

https://www.aquariumcoop.com/blogs/aquarium/white-cloud-mountain-minnow-care 

"How to Breed White Cloud Mountain Minnows
These minnows are very easy to breed as long as you have at least one male and one female. Sexing white clouds can be a bit tricky, but generally, males are more colorful and females are slightly bigger. All you have to do is provide clean water and good food, and they will continually spawn all throughout the spring to fall breeding season. The adults do not tend to predate on their own babies, but you can increase their survival rate by providing plenty of cover and dense plants, like water sprite and water wisteria. You can also make a DIY spawning mop out of yarn for them to lay their eggs on and then remove the eggs to put in a separate grow-out tank. Raise the newborn fry with tiny foods like infusoria and powdered food, and then graduate them to baby brine shrimp when they are big enough. To get your own school of white cloud mountain minnows, check out our list of recommended fish retailers."

 

[beastie]

Btw i had no trouble breeding them when I did the following:

I moved two plump females and three males or just one female two males to a different tank with no other fish. I left them for 24 hours and removed them. Five days later, i had fry. They are not hard to feed. Infusoria microworms, powdered fry food and in a week or two, hatched bbs. In a month and half i moved them in with the adults. No loses. But feeding is harder with adults and they grow much slower.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Btw they take at least six months to sexually mature since buying. So beware of that

[TJ _isme]

Thank you this helps a lot 

[TJ _isme]

 

Edited April 16 by TJ _isme

[TJ _isme]

What should I feed to the adaults to condition them for breeding? @beastie

Edited April 16 by TJ _isme

[MattyM]

On 4/16/2024 at 3:06 PM, TJ _isme said:

What should I feed to the adaults to condition them for breeding?

Live/frozen foods, esp BBS, as a pre-lights out feeding typically works - might still take a bit tho. I have 2 females that are obviously egged up, and frozen food at night really gets the males pestering the females. 

[JE47]

To breed mine I first want to shout out @whitecloudDynasty for his help but he advised two pairs of male and female together which I placed in a five gallon filled with spawning mops and some water lettuce as floaters. I kept them in the in the five gallon tank feeding baby brine heavily for about two days but otherwise leaving them alone to do their thing. After about two days almost three I removed the adults and returned them to my show tank. After close to week I was able to see the fry hiding amongst the water lettuce. I was prepared for the fry to be tiny but not that tiny once I saw them I feed microworms and repashy powder and then finally gave them baby brine shrimp. My fry are still growing but are so cute. I hope your project is successful and keep us updated on the progress.

[TJ _isme]

Thanks for the tips I’ll will keep y’all updated with my progress, the tank is still empty, and I am still collecting the equipment for the tank.

[beastie]

On 4/16/2024 at 10:40 PM, JE47 said:

To breed mine I first want to shout out @whitecloudDynasty for his help but he advised two pairs of male and female together which I placed in a five gallon filled with spawning mops and some water lettuce as floaters. I kept them in the in the five gallon tank feeding baby brine heavily for about two days but otherwise leaving them alone to do their thing. After about two days almost three I removed the adults and returned them to my show tank. After close to week I was able to see the fry hiding amongst the water lettuce. I was prepared for the fry to be tiny but not that tiny once I saw them I feed microworms and repashy powder and then finally gave them baby brine shrimp. My fry are still growing but are so cute. I hope your project is successful and keep us updated on the progress.

Yeah they are not that tiny a fry, you can still see them. I have the pseudomugil luminatus and the epiplatys annulatus, those fry are TINY :)) the minnows are easy, hikari first bite, they find the infusoria in the mops/moss/plants and are quick to accept hatched bbs, two weeks tops. But after half a year they are still noticeably smaller than my adults, so

 

I feed my fish the same, live bbs, live microworms, frozen anything, mosquito larvae, daphnia, cyclops, rotifers and sometimes will do an algae wafer or dried food. Mine are fat all the time 🙂 Overeaters

 

[TJ _isme]

Can I substitute hikari first bites with aquarium co-op fry and small fish food?