breeding of Celestial Pearl Danio, aka Galaxy Rasbora
Posted: Fri Mar 23, 2012 3:11 pm
hi guys
This post is to encourage hobbyists to breed their pets, especially if you have species which are not too easy to get.
Being an aquarist in delhi sometimes it makes you cry.
There are so many awesome fish out there, available everywhere, even in india…but not in delhi.
Unavailability, poor quality of fish or high prices should be motivation enough for us to try to breed our aquapets…in order to maintain a permanent pool of live stock in our area…and make more fish species accessible for fellow aquarists.
A couple of months ago I was able to get my
on danio margaritatus - celestial pearl danio, aka galaxy rasbora.
Very colourful, not aggressive and small in size – a perfect fish for smaller planted tanks, nanos and aquascapes.
Researching the internet, luckily it seems to be not that difficult to breed them.
Here I want to share the method which works with mine CPD quite well.
To my opinion everything starts with the proper food for the parent fish.
There is one thing which many fish have in common: they like live food, live food, live food.
Sure, it might also work with tetra bits, but fish are much healthier, more active and breed better if you start offering them live food.
Some people think tetras are boring. Well, feed them daphnia…and they will mutate to piranhas…
I offer daphnia, microworms, artemia and microfex.
After a few days/weeks the cpd females develop a nice round belly, and seem to be ready to spawn.
male left, female right
The males are in absolutely stunning colours, very active, swimming around the females…it all looks like mating…but nothing happens!
There is one trick to stimulate them to spawn. Actually very simple, but also very necessary:
Moss.
They need it as substrate for their eggs.
In a nutshell: no moss, no eggs.
If there is moss in your tank, they will spawn continuously, but unfortunately they also eat their own eggs. And tank mates do as well…only very few frys survive…if any at all.
You want to control your breeding efforts and protect the eggs and frys?
This is one method which works:
1. Remove all moss from your cpd tank.
2. Get a plastic container of a size of around 1 litre
3. Fix a net or mesh a few cm above the bottom. The holes bigger than 2mm, big enough for the eggs to fall through, but small enough to keep the fish out.
4. Place a bit of moss above the mesh and fix it with a stone or something else, so it will not float away.
5. Place the container in your cpd tank.
Maybe a bit shy at the beginning, the cpd will accept it in their territory and soon start with their mating activities.
After a few days you can start “harvesting” . I do it once a week.
Take out the container and pour the content in another jar. You can see many eggs and also some frys already. Rinse the moss, because some eggs and frys get cought in it.
freshly hatched: 3mm
Per week I get 15-20 eggs/frys.
Maybe it is possible to increase the amount in separating each couple in a tank. But I don’t have neither space nor time to do it.
I leave the eggs and fresh frys in the jar for another week, without feeding. They still have the egg yolk and do not swim around.
After 1 week you have to start feeding them, which is a bit tricky, since the frys are just 3 mm. the only food they can take are infusoria and other microorganisms.
There are two ways to do it:
1. You can breed infusoria, I use two ways to do so: straw method and milk method
2. If you are lazy (welcome to my world) and happen to have a running shrimp tank: put the frys in the shrimp tank for the first weeks. The shrimp tank contains enough microorganisms in mosses and leaves, so the cpd frys find enough food.
after 1 week in shrimp tank: 4mm
After 2-3 weeks they seem to be big enough for other food, such as microworms and powdered tetra bits.
After 4-5 weeks they can take small artemia.
after 6 weeks: in tank with parents, around 10 mm
I do not know how many actually survive the first weeks, but it appears that most of them can make it.
With this method you can breed quite some numbers in a few weeks.
cheers
juanico
ps: working on the next breeding project already…a bit more challenging this time
This post is to encourage hobbyists to breed their pets, especially if you have species which are not too easy to get.
Being an aquarist in delhi sometimes it makes you cry.
There are so many awesome fish out there, available everywhere, even in india…but not in delhi.
Unavailability, poor quality of fish or high prices should be motivation enough for us to try to breed our aquapets…in order to maintain a permanent pool of live stock in our area…and make more fish species accessible for fellow aquarists.
A couple of months ago I was able to get my
on danio margaritatus - celestial pearl danio, aka galaxy rasbora.Very colourful, not aggressive and small in size – a perfect fish for smaller planted tanks, nanos and aquascapes.
Researching the internet, luckily it seems to be not that difficult to breed them.
Here I want to share the method which works with mine CPD quite well.
To my opinion everything starts with the proper food for the parent fish.
There is one thing which many fish have in common: they like live food, live food, live food.
Sure, it might also work with tetra bits, but fish are much healthier, more active and breed better if you start offering them live food.
Some people think tetras are boring. Well, feed them daphnia…and they will mutate to piranhas…
I offer daphnia, microworms, artemia and microfex.
After a few days/weeks the cpd females develop a nice round belly, and seem to be ready to spawn.
male left, female right
The males are in absolutely stunning colours, very active, swimming around the females…it all looks like mating…but nothing happens!
There is one trick to stimulate them to spawn. Actually very simple, but also very necessary:
Moss.
They need it as substrate for their eggs.
In a nutshell: no moss, no eggs.
If there is moss in your tank, they will spawn continuously, but unfortunately they also eat their own eggs. And tank mates do as well…only very few frys survive…if any at all.
You want to control your breeding efforts and protect the eggs and frys?
This is one method which works:
1. Remove all moss from your cpd tank.
2. Get a plastic container of a size of around 1 litre
3. Fix a net or mesh a few cm above the bottom. The holes bigger than 2mm, big enough for the eggs to fall through, but small enough to keep the fish out.
4. Place a bit of moss above the mesh and fix it with a stone or something else, so it will not float away.
5. Place the container in your cpd tank.
Maybe a bit shy at the beginning, the cpd will accept it in their territory and soon start with their mating activities.
After a few days you can start “harvesting”
. I do it once a week. Take out the container and pour the content in another jar. You can see many eggs and also some frys already. Rinse the moss, because some eggs and frys get cought in it.
freshly hatched: 3mm
Per week I get 15-20 eggs/frys.
Maybe it is possible to increase the amount in separating each couple in a tank. But I don’t have neither space nor time to do it.
I leave the eggs and fresh frys in the jar for another week, without feeding. They still have the egg yolk and do not swim around.
After 1 week you have to start feeding them, which is a bit tricky, since the frys are just 3 mm. the only food they can take are infusoria and other microorganisms.
There are two ways to do it:
1. You can breed infusoria, I use two ways to do so: straw method and milk method
2. If you are lazy (welcome to my world) and happen to have a running shrimp tank: put the frys in the shrimp tank for the first weeks. The shrimp tank contains enough microorganisms in mosses and leaves, so the cpd frys find enough food.
after 1 week in shrimp tank: 4mm
After 2-3 weeks they seem to be big enough for other food, such as microworms and powdered tetra bits.
After 4-5 weeks they can take small artemia.
after 6 weeks: in tank with parents, around 10 mm
I do not know how many actually survive the first weeks, but it appears that most of them can make it.
With this method you can breed quite some numbers in a few weeks.
cheers
juanico
ps: working on the next breeding project already…a bit more challenging this time
will surely encourage hobbyists from the region to start breeding fishes...... 
, so simple looking process, but you know the actual pain, and I think Delhi people are already rich and becoming Richer 
....