Dwarf Neon Rainbowfish Babies!

[sabrinah]

Just sharing my excitement with you all!

Around November I purchased 9 dwarf neon rainbows online and they came with hexamita. I lost 6 of them to it and one more female has had fairly rapid tumor growth, so she'll be gone in the next month or two most likely. The remaining male and female are healthy enough that they bred! I honestly wasn't even expecting them to survive long enough for any hopes of breeding. I found a few fry today, at least 4, hovering at the surface and around the roots of the salvinia minima. I don't have a tank to move them or the other fish in the tank to so all I can do is hope they hide well and don't get eaten

 

[sabrinah]

 

[sabrinah]

Ten! I've counted ten! The parents got an extra meal for all their hard work breeding...and also so they'll hopefully stay conditioned and get some more eggs going! I'm thinking I'll be feeding extra heavy on the Repashy and frozen foods for the next couple weeks. Omg, I need to order Spawn and Grow! If my luck continues maybe I'll move my last pair of pygmy corydoras to their own tank to see if I can get a spawn out of them!

 

[neely]

Ten! I've counted ten! The parents got an extra meal for all their hard work breeding...and also so they'll hopefully stay conditioned and get some more eggs going!

Congrats, that's a great surprise! Good luck if you decide to move the pygmy corydoras to a separate tank.

 

[mservant]

That's brilliant. Congratulations. I hope they do manage to hide and survive. Is there no way to set up some kind of little plastic tub close to the surface and move them in to that - using the same water?

 

[sabrinah]

That's brilliant. Congratulations. I hope they do manage to hide and survive. Is there no way to set up some kind of little plastic tub close to the surface and move them in to that - using the same water?

Unfortunately no, because they hide too darn well for me to catch! They can disappear in the salvinia roots or moss in a split second. I see more and more every day so the adults have yet to try and eat them, or at least haven't eaten a significant amount. I have 15-20 now. Counting is difficult because they're so hard to see! A few of the largest are starting to adventure below the safety of the salvinia which is a wee bit stressful.
I moved tumor-fish out into a little tank just to be safe, even though it doesn't move much or eat well. In reality, I should probably euthanize it since there's nothing I can do for it. It's essentially slowly dying. With how poor the quality of this shipment of fish was I'm concerned they may just be genetically weak and I'll have to cull deformed babies. For that reason, I've decided not to try and keep the pair conditioned, but rather let them stop breeding to see how this spawn turns out.

 

[mservant]

For years I kept cold water fish and used to despair at how often health problems took over and resulted in loss of almost all new fish. How much is down to the stresses of moving and water differences and how much poor breeder / selling conditions I never know but it is very sad. Wishing you lots of positive vibes for these little babies, both that they survive and that they are healthy and in good shape.

 

[sabrinah]

For years I kept cold water fish and used to despair at how often health problems took over and resulted in loss of almost all new fish. How much is down to the stresses of moving and water differences and how much poor breeder / selling conditions I never know but it is very sad. Wishing you lots of positive vibes for these little babies, both that they survive and that they are healthy and in good shape.

Yea I wonder about the same thing. There are some things I expect with shipped fish, like ich, and after discussing everything with very experienced people online they most likely became susceptible to hexamita because of shipping stress. Tumors though seem to be more quality than anything, because a young fish shouldn't get tumors. There was a local fish store I had to stop buying from because the fish I got from there kept dying. They mixed new shipments in with old fish and sold fish the same day the import order was received. The only way to get fish from them that lived more than a week was to specifically ask which fish had been there over a month. In one case I got some purple harlequin rasboras that did well for about 6 months before one by one they started developing cysts in the exact same locations in the exact same order, yet no other fish in the tank were affected. When I went back to the store they had had issues with a massive die off with shipments of harlequins from that seller. The same store also liked to sell wild caught plecos without informing you they're wild caught, leaving me to discover it when I find the overpriced critters dead from worms. That experience got me medicating and deworming every single new fish I receive.

I don't totally buy into changing parameters (unless it's ammonia, nitrite, nitrate) causing so much die off. I've gotten wild caughts from other stores that keep them in R.O. water to keep the pH and hardness down, and have had zero issue tossing them into my tap water.

When the babies are a bit bigger hopefully I'll be able to get better pictures. They're too small for the fry food I have but they've been feeding off the microorganisms and biofilm so they all have full bellies. If any deformed ones pop up I'll probably toss it in the tank with by wild rummynose pigs (they eat everything) and giant betta. It's so odd how commonplace culling is in fish breeding, yet everyone would be horrified if it was done to furry critters.

 

[mservant]

"It's so odd how commonplace culling is in fish breeding, yet everyone would be horrified if it was done to furry critters."

That is so true. I don't think it is common or accepted practice in any other area (e.g. birds) either despite it being common wild behaviour. I can't imagine doing it with anything other than fish my self but don't know why. In part probably because the fish would do it before I had a chance to stop it.

 

[sabrinah]

Perhaps it's because we're so limited with how we can treat an ill fish? It also helps that they can't scream, so there's less guilt for euthanizing them.

Most fish are far too small for surgery, and for the cost of surgery, you could buy a bunch of new fish. Like with my cyst fishies, once I realized it was going through all the harlequins and observed the full process a few times without successful treatment, I euthanized the rest of the fish a soon as I saw the signs of the cyst growth. I knew they would lose their ability to breathe and swim over the next couple weeks, so I got it over with before they struggled. They got a massive bloodworm meal for breakfast and then in the afternoon into clove oil they went. I don't think people would ever do that to a cat since you can just go get the cysts removed.
Cats and dogs with spinal deformities have a chance thanks to pet wheelchairs and accommodations, but most fish are euthanized because it usually impairs their ability to survive. One of the harlequins had a deformed face and earned the name "pug-face" for it. He was fat and happy for months before the limited about of food he could eat wasn't enough for the size he had been putting on. It's not like you can use a feeding tube on a fish. If a fish is getting picked on or is sick I regularly target feed with a pipette and tweezers to make sure they eat, but that's the most I can do. Pug face died and was eaten by the other fish.

I do think fish are good at eliminating other unfit fish, even if we don't see any issues. I had a pair of Apistogramma bitaeniata that tried to breed many times but they were never successful. While I can't be sure, I suspect the issue was infertility with the male. After about the 4th or 5th failed spawn the female tore the males lip off and proceeded to kill him a few days later. It was quite rude.

Anyway, back on the topic of rainbows. I've managed to count 11 babies today, but that doesn't mean there isn't more. They're much more dispersed than they were the first couple days so counting is hard. Getting pictures is impossible because they dart around so fast. I'm going to add a couple Indian almond leaves to the tank for the sake of infusoria and their anti-bacterial properties. I would hate for the babies to get sick!

 

[sabrinah]

I just found 5 new eggs in the very back of the tank. I can't reach them without severely disturbing the areas the current fry are hiding in so I have to leave them to hatch in tank with the parents

 

[Draco]

oh yay! Congrats on the eggs and babies! So exciting to breed fish!

I used to breed betta fish. Stopped after 2 batches because I couldn't find homes for them all.

 

[sabrinah]

oh yay! Congrats on the eggs and babies! So exciting to breed fish!

I used to breed betta fish. Stopped after 2 batches because I couldn't find homes for them all.

I've always wanted to breed bettas! What did you breed? What characteristics did you breed for? Were they imports? I went to an IBC show and saw some that would make wonderful pairs. I wouldn't trust people to take proper care of the bettas and I would end up keeping them all! Since they have the potential to have a spawn with hundreds of babies that would be problematic. Given that I've become partial to giants, it would be extra problematic!

 

[Draco]

I bred teal blue half-moon bettas which I did import from Thailand (ordered from aquabid). I wasn't trying to go for a specific trait, I wanted the experience to try and learn more about them. Certainly wasn't profitable to say the least, lol, but it was fun. found homes for most of the bettas with my coworkers and the rest to a local pet store.

it was hard, at one point at had about 150 or so bettas. The females were in one large tub, and the males were in deli cups in my closet on shelves (lighted closet, heated). It was too much work to change the cups out so often!

I am just down to one betta that I got from free (near death from Petco). going strong after 2 years.

 

[sabrinah]

I wish I could remember the exact number, but there was one person who had a spawn of around 800. That right there almost killed my betta breeding dream.

I had a Petco rescue too! They didn't give him to me for free though. He was a tough little fishy but he couldn't handle earthquakes we had recently. All of my fish were so torn up I'm impressed he's the only one I lost. It's been a month and my giant hasn't been the same since.

Rainbow update: The female is trying to eat the babies. All my breeding nets are broken but I'm going to try and rig something up tomorrow. I've already gotten super attached to the little guys! Even if I only catch one baby I'll be happy.

 

[sabrinah]

Baby feeding time! I got 10-15 in the breeding net so far. These are all newer babies, not the first round that hatched. Sadly, the entire first round was eaten as soon as they started gaining color.

 

[sabrinah]

TOO MANY BABIES. I have over 20 in the breeding net. Every day I move in a few more. I really need to stop doing that because I don't have space for dozens of rainbows! If I put rainbows in all tanks that they're compatible with and overstock the tanks but maintain adequate filtration with huge filters, I can keep 20. I really should only keep like 12. I need to stop saving babies unless I plan on making deals with the local fish store or selling them online.

There's always at least 6 babies in the back of the tank that avoid capture. Based on the number that I've caught thus far, how many hatched first (and were eaten first), and how many I've seen eaten over the last couple weeks, I would say the spawn was 40-50 eggs. This female is an overachiever! I have a mix of ages in the net but they're all still super tiny. The ones with droopy tails have been naturally dying off, so if that trend continues I hopefully won't have to cull any deformed ones. Tumor fish died yesterday and I'm 95% certain none of the eggs were hers, though I can't guarantee any of the babies won't also carry whatever crappy genetics she has since there's a chance the entire batch of rainbows I bought was related.

 

[Draco]

But they are so cute!!

set up a larger tank. Run out of room? Set up another tank. and another.. and another..

 

[sabrinah]

But they are so cute!!

set up a larger tank. Run out of room? Set up another tank. and another.. and another..

I wish I could! I'm on a strict tank limit sadly. No idea why on earth people would fear water damage...