tedr108
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Hi Emma,
CPDs are very easy to breed. If your CPDs are mature, they are probably breeding even as we speak — the eggs and fry, unfortunately, are appetizing for other fish (including bigger CPDs). No special arrangements need be made like separating males and females for a few days — just put them all in together. I think your food is fine. Besides crushed flakes and baby brine shrimp, I also have very small pellets that I feed mine.
Simply set up your new tank well. Plants are nice and help keep your tank healthy — and CPDs like plants, though they will use them as a hiding place. The java moss is a good idea. The java moss hides the eggs fairly well — the CPDs will likely lay their eggs in the java moss, if it is available. Some persons are able to leave their fry in the tank with the adults, but this is more of an exception than a rule, since CPDs will eat their own fry, too. Probably the simplest thing for you to do is to put your CPDs into your “breeding” tank for a couple of weeks and then remove them. Chances are you will see fry swimming about in a few days after removing the adults.
I’m not sure how mature your CPDs are. Mine were very small and not ready to breed for a few months after bringing them home.
My cardinals and CPDs get along very well. However, the one thing to remember is that the cardinals and neons are more aggressive feeders, and it may be a little more work on your part to get the CPDs enough food. That’s another one of the reasons that I have decided to move my CPDs to their own tank.
I have found that putting more aggressive (braver) fish in my tank makes the other fish braver also. Unfortunately, this is sometimes short-lived and things go back to normal after a few days.
Well, Amit, I guess you must have a planted tank, like me. If given a planted tank, CPDs do like to hide. I have some smaller tetras that seem to join in with the CPDs also. My cardinal tetras often hide with the CPDs, but overall come out more often. I have all small, passive, peaceful fish, and, yes, they often hang out with each other.
By the way, I think your CPDs are just doing what comes natural to them. My CPDs are healthy and happy (breeding a lot, though my other fish eat the eggs and fry as fast as they are produced), but I do get tired of seeing so little of them. I’ve decided to remove my CPDs from my 50G display tank and put them in their own 20G tank (I have 18 of them, plus a 1/2″ fry growing in another tank). I always have plants in my tanks, but I am going to try to plant the 20G in a way that the CPDs cannot get completely out of my sight. We’ll see how it goes.
I would agree that plants are a very good idea, especially with fry. I have plants in all of my tanks. They really do keep a tank healthier. I’m sure there are people good at raising fry without plants, but they probably do a lot of water changes — that sounds a little inconvenient in a loft.
For that 20G tank of yours, you could get a cheap 18 – 20w flourescent light (around 30w would be better), which would use very little electricity for 10 hours per day. Put some anacharis and anubias and moss (for the fish eggs) in there — the plants and fish will do fine. These plants will do fine with no added CO2. You won’t need to fertilize the water much on such a low light tank either, as the plants will grow very slow.
I agree with markopolo. All of your listed fish should get along fine (my CPDs, cardinal tetras, pencil fish, panda corys, otos, ember tetra, amano shrimp, and cherry shrimp are rather friendly with each other). However…
CPDs are not voracious eaters and may not get enough food, if you are not careful. First of all, all flake and mini-pellet feedings should probably be wetted before putting in the tank, so they sink. I’ve seen CPDs come to the surface for food, but it takes them a while — by then, the food will probably be gone in a community tank. For one of my 3 feedings each day, I use 3 types of sinking wafers (2 types of wafers and shrimp pellets) — the CPDs always go for these (especially the shrimp pellets). I also feed BBS (baby brine shrimp) every other day, which the CPDs enjoy.
Part of the problem with CPDs is that they are often very shy (especially when they have places to hide — like in a planted aquarium). When I feed, I step away from the aquarium or get on my knees — this encourages them to come out and feed.
Lastly, break flakes into small pieces and use very small pellet-type food — CPDs have small mouths.
dgp,
That is a drop checker. You put 3 (maybe 4) drops of pH reagent into water of a certain dKH within the drop checker. CO2 goes into the small amount of air in the drop checker and ends up affecting the pH of the solution. When the drop checker is green (an easy color to ID), that means your CO2 ppm level should be just right. There is a lag time of like 2 hours for the drop checker to be the correct color, but it’s still the best inexpensive thing going to keep an eye on your CO2 levels.
Example: If you put 4 dKH water in the drop checker with the reagent drops, the solution turns green at 30 ppm CO2.
Probably more than you wanted to know…
I would lean toward try-it-and-see. I recently got 6 rummy nose tetras (true variety) for my 50G planted aquarium. I guarantee you that my 18 CPDs and 25 cardinal tetras are now getting a lot less food, because these rummies eat very, very quickly — they are, however, totally non-aggressive. I’ve been feeding a little extra to make up for it, but I’m not overly comfortable with this situation. I do a 50% water change every week, so the extra food won’t hurt my tank. I really don’t think you’ll know for sure if this will work until you give it a try.
One thing I did to help my CPDs and cardinals get more food was putting wafers in every day. They seem to get their fair share of the wafers.
No links, Chris, but if you search for “myanmar cyclone” on the web, you’ll get more than you can handle.
You can either put some java (or other) moss in your tank or a spawning mop. The CPDs will lay their eggs in this safer breeding area. When the eggs fall down in between the moss strands (or acrylic yarn strands), many of them will be safe. If you are sure that eggs were laid, you can remove the adults and let the fry safely hatch. If you are not able to actually see the eggs, but you do see that your CPDs are doing the mating chase in the mornings (that’s when mine do it), simply remove the adults after a week or two. You will probably start getting fry in a day or two.
Glenn,
Thanks for the tip on the shrimp pellets. I ended up mail ordering the pellets since no LFS stocked them. All of my fish seem to enjoy them.
Nothing too exciting, but I have a 50G planted tank with:
25 cardinal tetras
18 CPDs
6 to 8 panda cory cats
6 rummy nose tetras
5 pencil fish
2 otos
9 cherry shrimp
2 amano shrimp
20 nerite snailsI had some SAEs at one point, but they were just a little too aggressive at feeding time, so I took them back to the fish store.
Celestialdude,
Took me a while, but I found a link to Scarlet Badis:
http://www.aquahobby.com/gallery/e_Dario_dario.php
Looks like they are Dario dario.
Celestialdude…
MTSs definitely aerate the substrate, spending most of the daytime underneath it. My MTSs came with a plant, I think, I have them all over my tank, and I did not buy them purposely.
I think that MTSs and other snails are eating my dead leaves at the bottom of the glosso carpet. My carpet is at least twice (if not 3 times) as thick as the pictured carpet here — mine is 2 – 3″ in most areas. The thing is, even with the eating of the melting leaves, that the glosso carpet keeps getting higher and higher. I see no option but to prune heavily every few months. I asked this question on another forum, and it was recommended to simply “mow” the glosso like a lawn down to .5 to 1″. I am going to try that soon.
I felt a little bad for buying CPDs also, when I first read up on them. However, I don’t think I lost any sleep.
I’ve read both sides where the CPDs are almost extinct and where the CPDs are doing just fine in the wild. The reality is probably somewhere in between.
If the cyclone did decimate the wild population (seems doubtful to me), all I can think of is how lucky we are that some of us have them in captivity and can continue on the species.
That’s a shame, zmo.
Logically, it really sounds like a water quality issue. But, then again, as you say, why aren’t the fry dying?
I’ve only been keeping fish for 6 months, so I may be way off, but…
Your tank sounds and looks like it is overgrown. I’m wondering if that isn’t hurting your tank’s circulation. Perhaps the fry are hanging out in a good part of the tank and the others are in a no-circulation area. Just a thought … it may not really make much sense. It is just something that I would look into. You could either get an extra cheapo HOB filter and get some more circulation going or do some pruning. My guess is that sooner or later the fry will be hurting also.
