[AquaGirl]

@Crypto wrote:

Hi Dennis,

I did a nitrite test and its all good. No nitrite

Hm i used fresh water. perhaps i should use water from my maintank after i made a waterchange in the maintank.

Hi Sven,

Welcome to the forum.
Sorry to hear that you lost your fry!

Did you test Nitrite or Nitrate.
If your reading was for Nitrite and your reading was 0 it sounds like your tank is not cycled and you could have had an ammonia spike. Ammonia would be very toxic to your fry.

[AquaGirl]

Thanks, Tom2006.

[AquaGirl]

@Mikolas wrote:

Hey AquaGirl, I’m really glad that you’ve had much success on your celestial pearls.

I’ve recently begun to breed my own and I thought this project was unsuccessful (I was able to sex them about 2 months ago) until I found 3 fry swimming nearby the top of the tank today. I readjusted the 20 gallon long with a divider so that one side can house the fry and the other contains the adults. I’ve no clue how they successfully managed to breed (I had recently separated males from females for the past 2 weeks to condition them).

Thus, I was wondering if you can leave a more detailed layout of how your tank is setup, etc. The egg trap has been very unsuccessful for me since they don’t even bother to hang out at that level (they stay very low and get very timid around the egg trap glass).

Also, what have you done to keep the fry alive? I don’t know what to feed the three surprises that I have right now.

Thanks for your time.

Sorry for the delay on a reply! I needed to change my email address to receive reply notifications. :oops:

I re-tried a modified version of the egg trap. I used a small glass baking dish and some plastic craft canvas on the top. I collect eggs every day from the trap. I am wondering if the red color on the original Pyrex dish frightens them???? This dish is not as deep as the Pyrex one was. It took a few days for the CPD to use it but they haven’t stopped breeding yet.

[attachment=2:au3nysqi]egg trap.jpg[/attachment:au3nysqi]

Here is a picture of my shrimp/fish room. The CPD tanks are on the far left hand side rack. The only tank on this rack that does not have CPD’s is the lowest one on the left hand side. You can see the dividers that I use on the 20g long on the second and third shelves. I have over 1700 babies from 16 adults. It is mid July and they are still breeding like crazy. I am now removing eggs from the bottom 20g tank and the ten gallon that is on the stand by itself. I add them to the 20g on the third row to let them hatch. Once they hatch I move them to the 5 1/2g tanks. When they are around 1/2 inch the move up to one of the ten gallon tanks on the top row.

[attachment=1:au3nysqi]3rd rack.jpg[/attachment:au3nysqi]

I use the bowl and the air line tubing to remove the eggs from the breeding tanks (see below photo). I use the turkey baster to remove any hatched fry into the smaller baby tanks. The first time I moved fry, using a net, they died. I think that they are too delicate to remove them with a net when they are newly hatched. I also use the air line tubing and bowl to suck up any babies that have hatched in the adults tank if they are hanging on the glass.

[attachment=0:au3nysqi]bowl etc.jpg[/attachment:au3nysqi]

If you have any questions or if I wasn’t clear please feel free to post.

[AquaGirl]

@BallAquatics wrote:

@MChambers wrote:

@MoeBetta wrote:

To be honest, mine hate the egg traps.

I get almost no eggs in the traps, I’ve counted nine so far.

If I just put a clump of java moss in the corner I can usually vac out a bunch of eggs every three days.

I pick up moss slowly and keep it over the place it was, transfer it to the fry tank, vac the area where it was, an replace with a fresh clump. This has been my personally successful method, which is a bummer, because I was excited about that egg trap. Maybe it works better in a bare bottom.

Mine don’t seem to like the trap either, so I think I’m going back to just having moss and other floating plants (elodia, etc.) and swapping the plants out to a fry tank every week or so.

I certainly don’t want to hi-jack Aquagirl’s thread about her successful breeding project, but I think there is some confusion about the egg trap.

It was developed while trying to spawn Danio tinwini, a species I find much harder to coax into spawning than the CPD. It is also NOT my preferred method when spawning CPD’s.

Here’s the original egg trap article…
http://www.danionins.com/articles/diyeggtrap.html

When I set-up my CPD’s for spawning, I used a modified version of Monica’s set-up detailed in her post located in this thread…
http://www.celestialpearldanio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=855

Sorry for the intrusion here, but at sometime down the road, I didn’t want any future readers having mis-conceptions about using the “egg trap” for spawning CPD’s.

Dennis

Hi Dennis,

So sorry that I miss understood or should I say that I am guilty of selective reading! :wink: No apology is ever needed for a correction! Thank you for the clarification.

[AquaGirl]

@GaMeR wrote:

@AquaGirl wrote:

A friend of mine has a 20g long that has a divider down the middle of the tank. He puts the breeders on one side and then moves them to the other side after a few days.

What does he use for divider? Glass or fine mesh? Cause I was thinking about using a mesh, but frys can get to adults part I think.

Hi There!

Sorry for the long delay in a reply.

It is a mesh tank divider sold in most pet stores. I didn’t have that much of a problem with the fry getting through to the other side but I did put tall plants along the mesh. Here is a link so that you can see what it looks like http://www.petco.com/product/112552/Penn-Plax-Aquarium-Tank-Divider.aspx
I used aquarium sealer to adhere it to the inside of the tank, otherwise there is space where the babies get can though.

I am also using a glass baking dish with plastic mesh (bought at a craft store) on top. The baking dish had handles so the mesh stays on it really well. I put some moss in the middle with a small rock on either end to hold it down so the parents can’t get to the eggs.

It is a modified version of Dennis egg trap. I give the moss a gentle shake over the dish and then remove the mesh to siphon out the eggs every day. I has worked really well. I have had a few fry hatch in the tank so I guess I missed a few eggs. I have plants floating on top of the tank so the parents didn’t eat them.

Good luck and let us know how your breeding is going.

[AquaGirl]

I’m doing a happy dance!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Today a friend called me and informed me that one of our LFS had some CPD in. I went in and hand picked 7, and got 6 females and one male. I have an excess of males already and wanted a lot more females.

These are as skinny as all get out, newly imported. They are eating food like it is going out of style.

Cost…..$2.96@ US

[AquaGirl]

@MoeBetta wrote:

Sounds like a plan. Has anyone run into their juveniles eating their fry?

Aka do I need to bother separating the mediums from the freshly hatched?

I removed the larger fry that are about one month old because I was afraid that they would try to eat the newly hatched.

I did not see them bothering them but didn’t want to take a chance that they would. Is a little paranoia a bad thing? :lol:

[AquaGirl]

@MoeBetta wrote:

Excellent AG!

It sounds like this has worked very well for you!

Thank you so much! It is working out well but at times it is tedious trying to suck up those tiny babies but well worth the effort.

Dennis method is most likely an easier solution. I set up another 20g long tank and will be placing some of the breeders in there with egg traps to see if it works better for me this time.

[AquaGirl]

I have over 200 fry now. I am still using a turkey baster to remove them from the breeding tank to their own tank and it is working out very well. I move the parents to the other side of the divided tank every 10 days. There always seems to be fry appear once I move the adults to the opposite side.

I had to remove the 10 fry from the first hatch because I feared that they were getting large enough now to eat the newly hatched. :roll:

They are starting to show color now and I am surprised at how fast they grow.

[AquaGirl]

I agree that 1/2 inch should be too large for the parents to eat.

My CPD can eat white worms with no problems and they are pretty large in comparison to the adults. :wink:

[AquaGirl]

Congratulations on the new fry, I hope they do well for you.
Tiny things aren’t they? :lol:

[AquaGirl]

Hello and welcome to the forum.

I am feeding mine all kinds of foods, decapsulated brine shrimp eggs, white worms, Walter worms, live daphnia, chopped blood worms, crushed flake food and golden pearls (thanks Dennis!).

Good luck and please keep us posted on your progress.

[AquaGirl]

I moved the parents to the other side of the divider last Sunday. Fry started to hatch out within hours of moving the parents.

Tonight I removed 15 more fry for a total now of 83. It seems as though they have taken off since I’ve been feeding the adults white worms.

I am using a turkey baster to transport the fry to their own tank. Most of the newly hatched fry stick on the glass and I suck them up with the turkey baster.

I am also using the baster on the fry that I have to net. I net them and then suck them into the baster. I moved two using just the net and they immediately dropped to the floor of the tank. By using the baster they do not come out of the water and they all seem to be doing well.

[AquaGirl]

Thank you so much! I found a new hatch in with the parents and was able to rescue it so my total is now 5.

I am going to get another tank and separate the breeding pairs and try Dennis trap again.

It proves to me that it is always the keeper not the fish that is doing something wrong.

[AquaGirl]

I just thought that I could use it up since I found that even a little in a shrimp tank is too much. My only concern…..what exactly is in it???

I guess since I am feeding a very varied diet to the fry it would be OK to try. I’ll let you know how it goes.

[Author]

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