Introduction…

[zzyzx]

Wanted to introduce myself…

I’ve decided to try to breed these fish, and wanted to report in. If I’ve done anything obviously wrong, or if you have suggestions, please let me know.

Tank:
I’ve got an AquaStart 320 that I’ve set up specifically for the job. I cycled it with some White Cloud Minnows that I have, and have moved them out, and put in 6 of the Celestials in it.

Sexing:
I’m not particularly good at this yet, but from what I can tell, the most noticeable feature that differentiates the males from the females (I’m using the photos in the scientific article linked to elsewhere in the forum) seems to be the colouration of one of the fins on the fish’s bottom side. On the males, the big fin in the middle seems to be really red, but on the female it seems to be grey. Is this your experience?

Using this guide, I have 2 fish that seem to -definitely- be male, and at least 1 fish that is definitely lacking this colouration at all. As this latter fish is also VERY large (almost twice the size of some of the others), I’m -assuming- that this is a female(?) and that she might be fatter because of eggs. (I’m not an expert – and not sure about this). The article also mentioned that the females might have a dark colouration around their “gravid spot” when “ripe”. (I have no idea what the “gravid spot” is, but I know where their solid waste comes out, and I’m guessing it’s around there somewhere?) In any case, the larger fish, that I’m guessing is a female, does have a dark spot there on both sides, but I’m not sure it’s “large”.

Temperature:
I -have- had these fish at 25.5 degrees, but reading the only post on here that mentions a specific temperature at which breeding has occurred, have just adjusted my heater down to 22 to see what happens.

Other conditions:
As the tank is cycled, there’s no Ammonia or Nitrites. The nitrates in my tap water are already at 10, and I can’t get it any lower without going for distilled or RO water. What have the nitrate levels been in the tanks where spawning has successfully occurred? The pH of my water is 7.6, which seems to be “in range” according to the literature I’ve found, but wouldn’t mind confirmation here too.

Plantings:
I’ve got a sand substrate, and have covered about 1/5 of this with java moss. There is one large leafy plant (sorry, I don’t know the name) which goes all the way up to the surface and provides the fish with good cover, which they use, and like to stay near for hiding. I have a piece of bogwood with thin grass-like plants growing out of it, but the fish don’t seem to spend much time in/around it, and prefer the larger plant and/or java moss.

Fish Behaviour:
I put three fish in about 5 days ago, and they spent the first day hiding underneath the internal filter. The next day they “relaxed” and swam about, but when I introduced 3 more celestials, all 6 fish then spent 3 whole days cowering under the filter, looking quite jittery. They didn’t seem too interested in taking food, and I was a bit worried about them eating. I’m happy to report though that today they seemed to have gotten over their nerves and are exploring the rest of their tank, and no longer cower under the filter when I approach. Today was also the first day that they actively swam to the top of the tank to take their food (Hikari micro-pellets). I’m also feeding them frozen cyclops and brine shrimp on the report of another breeder who says they seem to do well with these.

Mating behaviours:
When they were in my community tank, I’d seen some “mating behaviours” (the smaller males would make a guppy-like “S-dance” in front of other fish (he would flare out his fins, curl his body, and vibrate wildly), but as I wasn’t at the time sure of how to sex the fish, I wasn’t sure if that was to challenge other males, or to try to court females. I haven’t seen any of that behaviour yet in the species tank, but we’ll keep our fingers crossed.

[celestialdude]

Thanks zzyzx for the post.

Would be great if you could post some pictures of your fish… whenever you get the chance!

Cheers

[Coralline]

hiya!
thought id join in….
i have 9 galaxies (sorry, cant start calling them something else now) 3 definate males, and 6 females i think or 1 of the smaller ones could turn out to be a male. they’re in a 10 gallon planted tank, loads of java moss and fern, riccia floating, and a big red lily, which they hide under the leaves and watch me when i go into the fish room! they were rather skinny when i bought them, had them about 6 weeks now i think, they have coluored up so much and they are fattening up nicely, most females have gravid spots, but they move too quick to be sure whos who!

[fishcop444]

thanks for the detail…any progress?

[zzyzx]

It’s a month later, so here’s a report on my tank of CPD’s:

The best news is that I now have fry. I noticed the first fry about 2 weeks ago – it was so tiny I almost mistook it for a bit of flake food, but as it saw moving against the current of the water I had a closer look and noticed it had 2 eyes.

Since then, new fry have joined the group at the rate of about 1 per day (this with 5 females and 1 male – I was wrong about having 2 males, I’m pretty sure I only have one).

The fry numbers peaked at about 10-11 (they’re hard to count), and actually decreased for a few days (down to only 6 visible fry). I -believe- but am not sure that this may have because I introduced 2 cherry-red shrimp into the tank to help deal with a hair algae problem I have in the tank (the nitrates in my local tap water are VERY high and the hair algae was getting annoying). I never actually -saw- the shrimp eat any fry, but they did spend time swimming through the part of the tank where the fry swim (which is about 5-10 cm from the top), and I thought it might be possible they’d grab a fry as they swam past and munch them.

Testing this theory, I removed the shrimp and within a day or two, the number of fry has gone up again, and I’m currently back up to 10.

I’ve also noticed that some of the fry are now noticeably bigger than the others, so presumably they’re the older ones who are now starting to grow up a bit. These bigger ones are a little more “daring” and swim a little closer to the bottom of the tank where the parents are. (The parents almost never rise up off the bottom of the tank, which seems to provide a kind of natural behavioural protection of the fry from their parents).

I’m currently feeding the fry “liquifry” a few times a day, and the adults get Hikari micropellets alternated with frozen baby brine shrimp. I’ve never seem the baby fry go for the baby brine shrimp themselves, but others report that this is a good food for them, so maybe I just can’t see the fry eating them because they’re so small (?).

I’ve tried breeding live baby brine shrimp and putting them into the tank too, but this makes me a bit nervous because when I put live food in the tank, the adults wander a bit further from the bottom of the tank, and get very near the fry, and I worry that they might mistake a fry for a brine shrimp and eat them, so I’ve stopped doing this. I know that I -could- separate out the babies from the adults, but I don’t want to buy another tank just yet if I don’t have to, and leaving them in the same tank seems to be working OK so far…

[atlantis_child]

Hey zzyzx,

One way you could seperate the fry from the adults is to put the fry in a big, wide bowl of water and float it at the top of the tank.

It’s sounds like it would sink right? But it doesn’t, the same way a big, heavy cargo ship doesn’t. If it is tippy, simply use tape to secure it to a side, or sides of the tank

Anyway, that’s what I use to transfer fish between my two tanks of different temperatures.

Congrads about the babies

[Author]

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