louis_last
Member
I have seven Boraras maculatus that I'm trying to breed without any success so far. The group actually managed to produce a single fry that grew to maturity once before without any effort on my part but now that I'm doing everything I can to get them to breed I'm not having much luck and I have a few questions for anyone that's bred any Boraras species before.
The tank is about 13 gallons and heavily planted, I've recently added Pistia stratiotes floating plants, temperature is 26c and I'm not injecting co2 or providing any liquid carbon supplements. I'm using an eheim pickup 60 internal sponge filter with the output turned back on itself to minimise turbulent flow. I've added some oak leaves and have been using rooibos to create a blackwater effect. I've increased feeding and offer them finely crushed aquarian brand fish flakes as well as frozen copepods and have finally established several extremely productive cultures of Moina macrocopa to also feed on a daily basis. The males have coloured up and the females have all plumped up nicely. I'm located on the west coast of scotland and have naturally very soft water, I don't have any precise measurements but when I run it through a water distiller almost nothing is left behind whereas at a previous location huge amounts of mineral sludge and iron would be left in the evaporating chamber. There are no other fish in the tank but there are red ramshorn snails and cherry shrimp as well as a few very large amanos but these were all in there before when they produced fry.
the things I'm looking for some expert input on are following.....
Would actual blackwater extract or peat be better than rooibos tea? There's some conflicting infromation online but the fish and plants seem to have responded well to rooibos although this may also be due to the recent change to much softer water. The fish certainly show better colour when there's rooibos in the water but would real blackwater make them more likely to breed or affect fry survival?
My fish don't seem too keen on livefood? I give them moina daily and they do eat them but they're not very enthusiastic about it whereas they go wild for finely ground aquarian flake food. Do they just need to get used to the livefoods? my understanding is that the higher protein content of livefood helps bring them into breeding condition but if I don't also add flake food I can't keep the females looking as chubby as they simply don't eat as much of the moina for some reason.
The males are regularly displaying towards each other, there are two males and five females, and I've seen them chasing around the females before leading them into the plants but I've seen no sign of any fry whatsoever. Is it possible that the females aren't producing eggs for some reason? or should I assume that 100% of the fry are being sucked up by the filter? It doesn't have a particularly powerful draw and even tiny moinas seem able to swim out of the current that would pull them in but maybe I need to put some womens tights over the intake?.
Will shrimp and red ramshorn snails be eating the eggs that are produced? They've always been in the tank and the fish produced fry once before but I have noticed that the red ramshorn population has increased in proportion to the extra feedings for bringing the fish into breeding condition. Information online about whether they eat fish eggs is conflicting. I'm removing as many as I can and have ordered a couple of assassin snails but does anyone know whether they actually would eat fish eggs this small? Some people claim they clean fish eggs and don't eat them but I'm fairly suspicious.
I'd be grateful for any input from people who have bred these or other Boraras.
The tank is about 13 gallons and heavily planted, I've recently added Pistia stratiotes floating plants, temperature is 26c and I'm not injecting co2 or providing any liquid carbon supplements. I'm using an eheim pickup 60 internal sponge filter with the output turned back on itself to minimise turbulent flow. I've added some oak leaves and have been using rooibos to create a blackwater effect. I've increased feeding and offer them finely crushed aquarian brand fish flakes as well as frozen copepods and have finally established several extremely productive cultures of Moina macrocopa to also feed on a daily basis. The males have coloured up and the females have all plumped up nicely. I'm located on the west coast of scotland and have naturally very soft water, I don't have any precise measurements but when I run it through a water distiller almost nothing is left behind whereas at a previous location huge amounts of mineral sludge and iron would be left in the evaporating chamber. There are no other fish in the tank but there are red ramshorn snails and cherry shrimp as well as a few very large amanos but these were all in there before when they produced fry.
the things I'm looking for some expert input on are following.....
Would actual blackwater extract or peat be better than rooibos tea? There's some conflicting infromation online but the fish and plants seem to have responded well to rooibos although this may also be due to the recent change to much softer water. The fish certainly show better colour when there's rooibos in the water but would real blackwater make them more likely to breed or affect fry survival?
My fish don't seem too keen on livefood? I give them moina daily and they do eat them but they're not very enthusiastic about it whereas they go wild for finely ground aquarian flake food. Do they just need to get used to the livefoods? my understanding is that the higher protein content of livefood helps bring them into breeding condition but if I don't also add flake food I can't keep the females looking as chubby as they simply don't eat as much of the moina for some reason.
The males are regularly displaying towards each other, there are two males and five females, and I've seen them chasing around the females before leading them into the plants but I've seen no sign of any fry whatsoever. Is it possible that the females aren't producing eggs for some reason? or should I assume that 100% of the fry are being sucked up by the filter? It doesn't have a particularly powerful draw and even tiny moinas seem able to swim out of the current that would pull them in but maybe I need to put some womens tights over the intake?.
Will shrimp and red ramshorn snails be eating the eggs that are produced? They've always been in the tank and the fish produced fry once before but I have noticed that the red ramshorn population has increased in proportion to the extra feedings for bringing the fish into breeding condition. Information online about whether they eat fish eggs is conflicting. I'm removing as many as I can and have ordered a couple of assassin snails but does anyone know whether they actually would eat fish eggs this small? Some people claim they clean fish eggs and don't eat them but I'm fairly suspicious.
I'd be grateful for any input from people who have bred these or other Boraras.