Dr. Ashtray
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Congrats on the good luck breding them! I have had good luck but only have 3 females and two males in the breeding tank so the output isn’t a daily thing and most of the fry get munched so far so I have only a meagre seven of them. The parents must be pretty voracious appetite-wise. I am setting up a couple of spawning tanks using plastic canvas as the base to protect the eggs from the parents. I have also kept the best of the adults as the breeders to keep the strain nice and strong. My fry are definitely healthy and great to watch grow. Such a slow process but definitely worth it!
Cheers!
Jeffrey…
Wow, now that is a good deal if I have ever seen one. If I still lived in Toronto, I would have been all over those! If you ever want to trade any, I breed them and have quite a few and many more as soon as I get my spawning tanks up and running. Canada post Expresspost would be the best way to send them. Definitely wait until the spring for this as we don’t want CPDsicles!
Cheers!!
Jeffrey…
I believe he just lets them continuously spawn. He removes Java moss with eggs and shakes it out into his fry tank. I was actually wrong about the number he has spawned. It is more like 50 every few months. He has bred out over 100 though. The fry I got tonight was from his stock. Great stock actually. I bought a wild female from him to add to the mix up here. I have a really nice male with three really nicely conditioned females including the wild one. I think the best results would come with using the plastic carpet and Java moss as the spawning mop even though it sheds. You can just suck that out. I think the microscopic organisms that live in the Java moss would feed the fry as the first start to use their digestive systems upon hatching from their eggs.
I will keep everyone posted as to my success as the weeks go on.
Cheers!
Jeffrey…
I just got my first fry about half hour ago. Tried to catch it but it zipped right down into the carpet of Java Moss. Hopefully it will stay hidden from the adults or it will end up as a nice silver sliver of food before I know it. In any event, it is a good sign! My water conditions and everything must be A-ok if I am getting fry. I am going to take it all on seriously with spawning tanks as soon as I get the supplies from their various locales across the globe.
This is pretty exciting!! I have been raising my orginal tank-bred stock for about a month.
Jeffrey…
The main breeder here in Ottawa has spawned over 100 fry in the past few months. He swears by 72 degree water temp. He uses the Java moss method where you take the java moss out of one tank after spawning and shake it out in another tank to release the eggs. The water in Ottawa is also around 7.5PH and pretty soft. I would say that if you want success in breeding these you have to simulate the mountain conditions they come from which do not include high temperatures like the African and South American species. I will have two breeding tanks set up in the coming weeks using two of the methods discussed in this forum. The Plastic Canvas method and the breeding trap method. I currently have Celestials in four tanks two of them are their own environment with lots of Java moss and moderately planted. The others are community tanks. As soon as I have the ten gallon tanks set up I will go crazy with the breeding experimentation.
I will keep everyone posted as to how my methodology works out. I feel pretty confident that I will have large healthy spawns. I live on softened well water that is very good and low in everything it should be. The PH is 7.5 but drops a little when I add C02 to the mix. Alkaline water at low temps is the key to CPD breeding success.
Jeffrey…
I am glad to hear you have some Celestials to replace the deceased ones. I have 20 of them right now with a male and too good females in a 30 gallon vintage tank I have set up with a sponge filter and a lots of plants. I will see what happens there. There is a pretty serious breeder in Ottawa that has been successful at breeding them in pretty good numbers. Maybe by next summer I will have a good little supply and could maybe trade some with you to keep the line strong on both ends if you want. We will have to get in contact sometime in may when it isn’t too too hot to ship them. The breeder in Ottawa has his tanks at 72 degrees and breeds them like crazy. I am trying them out at 76 degrees to see if there is much of a difference.
Lots of fun!!
Jeffrey…
That sounds like a plan!! I just got a small colony of 16 of them today from a local breeder. They are looking great in their new tank. I am looking forward to breeding these and will have no problem at all sending some down in trade for some from the USA. I will keep everyone posted as to the progress. We have to keep the genes strong at all costs. Although, I have a feeling that they will make a good comeback in the wild and that the locals will probably reconsider eating them when they see profit elsewhere. I heard that they sell cans of 500 CPDs for next to nothing. Crazy if you ask me!
I look at it like having a bunch of little star-systems swimming around in my tank. A whole star-system in less than an inch. Gotta love that!!
Jeffrey…
I think these little fish will have a huge population in captivity. This will save them inevitably. I also think it might be a great idea to trade amongst each of us to ensure strong genetics for the further generations. As soon as I have a nice-sized population I will post on here to see if anyone would like to trade some. I am still waiting for the fifteen I have on reserve. They are just about ready to sex. Can’t wait!!!
Jeffrey…
L777 I read your post on the Ottawa forum. It is great mixing it up in the forum sense. I know that there is quite a lot of interest in this area. I think there will be a figural explosion of CPD keepers in this area. I will help it all happen. This is an interesting and informative forum. I have picked up quite a bit of useful information I will exercise when I start the breeding process. Thanks a lot for that and everything else!!
Jeffrey…
I have an uncle in Aylmer. Aylmer is basically the same distance away from Ottawa as Wakefield is geographically speaking of course. I know the plane tickets from the UK are quite on the heavy side what with you using pounds sterling as your currency an all. I will make it over that way one day if I win the lottery!! Haha! IN all seriousness, I would love to make it there one day in the near future. I just love the music scene over there and pretty much can’t get enough of it. I will be receiving my CPDs soon. I have a fry 12 gallon fry tank with a nice clump of java moss covering most of the bottom and a vintage 25 gallon metaframe metal frame tank they will be residing in in colony form. I also have a small clown loach, a shoal of corydoras habrosus(about 12 of them) and three otos in the same tank. Should be interesting breeding them. So far they have been quite easy from what I have read locally. I will probably use another one of my 1o gallon tanks as a grow out tank for the fry so I can keep adding preggers females into the 12 without them hoovering all of the fry.
Cheers!!
Jeffrey…
Well, I found some local CPDs in Ottawa, Canada. It turns out they are quite popular yet still quite rare in this area as well. I found some information on the local aquarium society board. I have a dozen of them reserved from a local breeder that has them very close to being available. Here is the link to that thread. Quite an interesting read. Maybe someone can add something from this board to that discussion.
http://ovas.ca/index.php?topic=18240.0
Jeffrey…
I attended University of Guelph from 1990 to 1994. There was a building named after Dr. Axelrod. He donated his fossil fish collection to the University back around that time. I had the chance to see it, very nice indeed! If you ever see any fish named after me, let me know. I would love a photo! Haha!!
Jeffrey…
