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Breeding Rainbow Shiners


Fish Folk
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Ok: so, we’ve never kept or tried to breed Rainbow shiners (Notropis chrosomus) . . . but have a long-standing “crush” on the species. 

We’ve got questions! Have you kept and / or bred these fish?

We see their incredible color potential. Does that really come out in home aquarium set up and lighting? Or is it only displayed in outdoor ponds? Is the tremendous coloration just in dominant males (like peacock cichlids) or is it a maturity thing? Are they colored up year round? Is this a matter of selective breeding? There appears to be a reddish strain and a bluish strain. Is this just genetics or lighting? Or diet? 
 

Has anyone tried selectively breeding these for intense coloration? How often do / could they spawn in home aquaria? 
 

What we’ve seen is largely drab looking specimens indoors, but wonderfully colored ones outdoors. Is it a sunlight thing?? 
 

And... oh please, oh please, ... can they be successfully kept with Rainbow darters?? 

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This is my experience with them.

I bred them for many year but only just recently started keeping record.

Let me start with wild stock. they are within a few southeastern state and will varies in color in different stream.

The photo you posted are 3 male and 1 female in breeding color all fire up. they will fire up in home aquarium just like how they do in pond. how much color and how long they stay fire up is base on the family you get. the wild stock have 2 color base that i know off a blue and a red. blue will have more blue one their whole body even when not fire up, and red look kinda like plan gold body minnow with little to no blue but when fire up they have a rich dark red. there's no dominant male being more colorful, when its time to fire up all the male will fire up together. the older the fish gets the more color they will start showing as their normal color. 

the very dark red you see are most likely the UK line, their color are amazing but they have some deformity, atleast in some photo i have seen. we are very lucky to have they ability to clean them back up with our native wild stock if deformity show up, but i haven't seen anyone really working with them here. 

And yes they can be kept with rainbow darters.

my line is base of the blues and they stay fire up almost all year after they get old enough. My main goal is to get a family that will fire up and stay fire up at a younger age so the lfs can show off their true beauty. most of the time they look like plan minnow at the store, being the reason they are not as popular in our hobby.

 

 

 

 

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Awesome! This is exactly what we're looking to learn. Thanks so much. Was watching some of your videos again yesterday too. Most of the interesting YouTube videos from Europe about them are all in German . . . which, sadly, is hard for me to follow.

I think that if this video from Tennessee Aquarium shows wild rainbow shiners in situ footage, they must be able to be line bred for specific traits:

[referring to the photo below from your YouTube posting] Was looking at your outdoor tub / mini pond breeding set up from a couple years ago. Can you confirm that this is a pot with rocks set on the floor of the tub / pond, with a mesh net set on top containing a few inches of water and a few rocks to hold down so that the rainbow shiners breed over the stones, the eggs fall through the rocks and mesh floor into the lower pot with rock, which is then taken out and placed into a fry tank for the eggs to hatch and raise up? Am I understanding this correctly?

 

 

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1 hour ago, Fish Folk said:

Awesome! This is exactly what we're looking to learn. Thanks so much. Was watching some of your videos again yesterday too. Most of the interesting YouTube videos from Europe about them are all in German . . . which, sadly, is hard for me to follow.

I think that if this video from Tennessee Aquarium shows wild rainbow shiners in situ footage, they must be able to be line bred for specific traits:

[referring to the photo below from your YouTube posting] Was looking at your outdoor tub / mini pond breeding set up from a couple years ago. Can you confirm that this is a pot with rocks set on the floor of the tub / pond, with a mesh net set on top containing a few inches of water and a few rocks to hold down so that the rainbow shiners breed over the stones, the eggs fall through the rocks and mesh floor into the lower pot with rock, which is then taken out and placed into a fry tank for the eggs to hatch and raise up? Am I understanding this correctly?

 

 

Screen Shot 2020-12-30 at 7.50.29 AM.png

The video is wild stock, thats just how they look fire up in the wild. As for my setup the rainbow shiner eggs hatch in the pond with my white cloud breeder

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3 minutes ago, WhitecloudDynasty said:

In NC I kept them year round, their water gets from 15f-85f degrees 

Awesome! We got up to 90 in sunlight back porch mini pond with guppies last summer. Too hot! 

Do you think a nice small school could do OK in a 20 gal (tall)? Or do they need larger tank? 
 

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3 hours ago, Fish Folk said:

Awesome! We got up to 90 in sunlight back porch mini pond with guppies last summer. Too hot! 

Do you think a nice small school could do OK in a 20 gal (tall)? Or do they need larger tank? 
 

My setup is a breeding setup so all 10 gallon, so I would say they be fine but would enjoy a longer aquarium. I got them in my 10 gallon, 20l and 110 stock tank.

As for your mini pond itll be pushing it at 90 degrees. But the temperature doesn't hurt them as much as lack of DO. These fish require high lv of DO.

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As for the question yes they can be kept with rainbow darters the darters sty low in the tank however the darters do not like flake or pellet food. In my 300 I have both and they are doing well however you have to be mindful of a few things. the darters love black worms and other bottom dwelling foods they do well on frozen foods as well.  the shiners will out compete them for the food. Also the darters love fish eggs and are surprisingly good at finding them. Here are two of the 4 species of darter I have right now I am getting 2 more secret ones soon😉

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Edited by Taylor Blake
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2 minutes ago, Taylor Blake said:

As for the question yes they can be kept with rainbow darters the darters sty low in the tank however the darters do not like flake or pellet food. In my 300 I have both and they are doing well however you have to be mindful of a few things. the darters love black worms and other bottom dwelling foods they do well on frozen foods as well.  the shiners will out compete them for the food. Also the darters love fish eggs and are surprisingly good at finding them.

Thanks so much! Great tips. We’re going to give this a try. When it comes to actually breeding either species, we’ll separate to their own tanks. Do you run a chiller on them at all?

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No chiller I'm up in Minnesota so my water temp will stay I in the low 60s in the winter when I do weekly water changes water out of the tap is between 40-50 so it's more just not heating the tank. In the summer the temps rise into the mid to low 70s. Darters are a little  hard to raise up from my understanding because they are just really small when they hatch. This is a resource I have found through my local club 

johnny-darter-charcoal.jpg
AQUARIUM.MN

 

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