Cardinal Breeding Diary..

[plymbloke]

Dan - as I havent maanged to breed them yet I can only go by other peoples experiences with them and the behaviours of other tetras - basically the male will drive the female into a suitable spawning site, eg java moss and stay close to her shaking as you suggested briefly - typical characin spawning routine really - there are a few videos on YouTube of neon tetras spawning, which although are 'easier' to spawn, display the same characteristics.

Hi Peter and welcome - I have thought about LEDs yes but I am going to try the 'natural' route for a few attempts first.


Heres hoping the second attempt at this will prove more sucessful - although i guess by doing this we should be able to work out a god, tried and tested way to spawn these great little fish which are, lets face it, a superb addition to a discus tank!

Cheers,

Chris

[plymbloke]

i have 5 gallons of fresh rainwater being filtered with peat at the moment, with some dry peat left on the surface, after a short while this should become waterlogged and sink and after a few more days the water should be ready to add to the tank. in the mean time the fish are getting conditioned again.

For the conditioning this time I am going to divide the tank - leaving the male in sight of the females but unable to get to them - hopefully this may stimulate him into action when i remove the barrier. I am contemplating adding another, fresh male with him and i will compare which of the two looks leaner and most active and then choose this one to be mixed with the females.

last time although early moments looked promising with the male chasing a couple of females, nothing really happened and he seemed to loose all interest, we shall see what happens this tiem around....


Chris

[plymbloke]

Tuesday 11th March

Females are eating well, feeding them frozen brineshrimp and bloodworm at the moment to get them feeding well, oging to keep theat up until saturday, then i will use purely live foods - daphnia/brineshrimp and blood worm. I am going to condition them until wednesday19th march - if they are looking nice and ready i will add the male and remove two of the least plump females.

[Eyal]

Good luck plymbloke
Interesting thread !!
I marked it to continue watch it

[plymbloke]

Thanks Eyal,

Not much to report on at the moment - all is going well, the fish are feeding well and still looking happy lol I have ran out of brineshrimp - not 'allowed' to hatch them at lol so they are on frozen at the moment still. should pick up loads more on sunday though.

[Apistomaster]

You may find them easier to spawn if you use a larger group. 12 fish, 3 or 4 females. Add the females first, then add the males the next day. Leave them in the tank for up to three days if they don't spawn on the morning after first adding themales. If ou feed them, I would use a few live blood worms or black worms. Something that won't die and pollute the breeding tank if they are not all eaten.
I always cover the bottom with a nylon fly screen covered piece of fluorescent light diffuser egg crate cut to fit the whole bottom. Use acrylic yarn mops. These materials are all easy to sanitize.
Their eggs are semi-adhesive and most will fall through the mesh where the fish can't get them.
Almost total darkness seems important to them to feel secure enough to spawn in the stripped down set up and also for egg hatching and early stages of larvae development. Just an air stone at first, no filter.

Raising fry is not something I have mastered. I keep loosing them and by the time they should be free swimming, mine have all died. I have a long ways to go.
I have the same trouble with Neons even though they are now tank raised except they are much easier to get to spawn than Cardinals, I am still losing their fry.

Have you spawned any other Tetras? If not Black Neons, Black Phantoms and Beckford's Pencilfish, Nannostomus beckfordi, are good practice species. Beckford's Pencilfish are especially good to use for practicing raising small fry. It helps me to be patient with the most difficult species to work with some that give me results and some success. I have enough spawning tanks where I can work with several species at the same time.
These species are just hard enough to force you to provide the clean environment and their eggs and fry are sensitive enough to work on achieving the balance between cleanliness and yet supplying enough Infusoria to get them large enough to take brine shrimp nauplii. If you want, you can go directly to brine shrimp with Black Neons and Black Phantoms but the number of survivors will only be a fraction of what is possible with live micro-foods. The Pencilfish will require infusoria for a few weeks. Not all will grow at the same rate and there will be an overlapping period where both foods are required as you shift over to all brine shrimp.

[plymbloke]

thanks for that Apisto, for egg scatterers i have so far spawned golden pencilfish (beckfords), celestial pearl danio, zebra danio and glowlight tetra. All of which were pretty easy to spawn/raise. My trouble seems to be getting a male that is interested in spawning, the females condition really quickly and get full of roe in no time at all.

[plymbloke]

about time for an update i think: just thought id show you my setup:



There is a base of sand with waterlogged peat scattered over it and java moss to act as the spawning medium.

Have been busy with work lately so i havent been able to give them my full attention but females are happy and feeding well, I will let you all know as soon as i add the male.

Chris

[Heiko Bleher]

Hi, Cradinal breeder...

this is Heiko Bleher, a cardinal collector. I did my first cardinal collecting 1965 (when I discovered the brilliant rummy nose tetra: Hemigrammus bleheri) and my last ones last November, see:
http://www.aquapress-bleher.com/inde...=187&Itemid=22

I also breed them 8and many other fishes) and I see that you will hardly EVER be successful with your cardinals in breeding them simply because you no not have the right water parameters. You have to have an extreme low pH, at least below 5, better around 4 (last ones I collected in pH 3.4 !). Secondly the water must be extreme soft (conductivity below 20 µS/cm microsiemens) and once you set them up for spawning the temperature has to be 2 degrees centigrades higher (so if you keep them before in 26 degrees Celcius, raise the spawning site to 28 degrees Celcius)

Remember, the cardinal are only breed successfully in a very few places on the globe, simply because of the extreme water they live in. (same goes for Heckel discus, the brilliant rummy nose, the checkerboard cichlid, etc.). I have seen it recently in Russia and for some time they do in very successfully in the Czech Republic, but both places have extreme waters, similar to nature (and that is why they can...).

Look also at my large article at :
http://www.aquapress-bleher.com/inde...id=6&Itemid=22
there go to www.hagen.com and download issue of of Nutrafin Aquatic News, you have everything you wanted to know about neons and cardinal tetras (written by me, from my experiance in nature and breeding).

Best regards and great success, from a collector

Heiko Bleher
www.aquapress-bleher.com

[thang45]

You have to have an extreme low pH, at least below 5, better around 4 (last ones I collected in pH 3.4 !). Secondly the water must be extreme soft (conductivity below 20 µS/cm microsiemens) and once you set them up for spawning the temperature has to be 2 degrees centigrades higher (so if you keep them before in 26 degrees Celcius, raise the spawning site to 28 degrees Celcius)

Hi Heiko,

Wow, that is very low pH and µS/cm . I would have never thought of that. I would love to see Chris try your directions and see if they can breed.

[plymbloke]

THank you very much for that Heiko, i will be reading through those articles a LOT I will lower the ph asap, at the moment it is down to 6, over next couple of days i will bring it down to 5. I will try and follow your advice as best I can!

Thank you once again

Chris

[Darrell Ward]

THank you very much for that Heiko, i will be reading through those articles a LOT I will lower the ph asap, at the moment it is down to 6, over next couple of days i will bring it down to 5. I will try and follow your advice as best I can!

Thank you once again

Chris

Yeah, Heiko is "The Man". You can't go wrong following his advice. Good luck Chris. I'm cheering for you!

[tdr1919]

How Great is that!, when the "legends" of our hobby tune in to help out.

-Tom

[plymbloke]

tdr1919 - i couldnt agree more! its good to know that people such as Heiko are willing to help us out

by the way.... AN UPDATE!

My pH is at 5, the temp is at 28, I only have Tetra test Strips for the kh and gh but they are both as low as the readings go and the tank is setup as in the photograph above. Females are being fed lots of bloodworm, daphnia and brineshrimp (they love bloodworm, they seem to suck it down like spaghetti in a second!!).

Also my males are looking fit and healthy in my main tank.

I am going to remove the two females that are less plump on saturday (leaving two) and replace with my two best looking males, and see what happens! so.... Take 2! wish me luck lol

[pcsb23]

Good luck Chris