Easy Breeding

Hey I was just curious as to if there is a small native fish that is simple to breed, just like say the zebra danio is. Would love to raise up an interesting small native schooling fish that was locally bred.

Thanks

Elassoma gilberti is small and easy to breed. Here's a picture of one of my males: http://gallery.nanfa...resize.jpg.html
It spawns in a wide variety of water conditions, from soft water with 0 DH to hard water with 20 DH.
The lines in this scaled photo show one inch: http://gallery.nanfa...mber 2.jpg.html
Here's a link to my topic: http://forum.nanfa.o...i/page__st__720
I feed the adults live grindal worms, frozen bloodworms, and live bloodworms. The fry eat live microworms.

There are also other species that are small and easy to breed. Heterandria formosa, a very small livebearer, is native to the US. Female H. formosa release young every other day or so, continuously. Gambusia are native livebearers, too, and they do the batch technique of livebearing like Xiphophorus or Poecilia.
The American Flag Fish, Jordanella floridae, spawns easily in mops, which you can remove and hatch the eggs.
Leptolucania ommata requires extremely soft (DH 0), acidic (pH 4) water, but will breed if given those conditions. There are a lot of native killifish, like Lucania goodei, but I'm not sure how to spawn those. Fundulus would know.

If you're looking for a schooling fish, though, I can't think of any super super small ones less than and inch or less than two inches. The minnows are all around 4 inches. But if you don't mind that, then Notropis lutipinnis is my favorite. The rainbow shiners are also really cool, Notropis chrosomis.

Edited by EricaWieser, 25 October 2011 - 09:14 PM.

Fathead Minnows
Off the top of my head, fathead minnows (Pimephales promelas) are considered very easily bred, and are readily available as feeder fish at nearly every fish store. The minnows sold in the stores are the leucistic variety of this fish, and are often labeled "Rosy Reds," but their name will vary from place to place. On the other hand, it would probably be better to collect your own specimens in the wild since those from the stores are not well cared for. Plus, in my own opinion, breeding males of the normal brown variety are much nicer looking than their kind of bland pinkish-peach leucistic counterparts.
These fish breed nothing like your average schooling cyprinid. They are more like cichlids! A male will take up residence under an overhang or in a rocky cave dwelling, cleaning it and guarding it from others of his kind. When he is ready to breed (which is nearly all the time in the warm confines of your aquarium), normal brown males will develop a pattern of extremely dark and very pale vertical stripes on their bodies, nearly black and white in color. Males of the leucistic form take on a pinker hue, with a very red stripe running the length of their body. Both kinds' heads will become covered with "cyprinid pimples" (I can't recall at the moment what they are called) and will swell with fatty tissue (hence their name) that secretes a substance that becomes important later on. Next, he attracts a plump female into his boudoir and she lays her large number of eggs on the ceiling of the cave as he fertilizes them. When the deed is done, the male chases the female out, and begins to care for the eggs by fanning them, and also rubbing the aforementioned substance from his fatty tissue onto the eggs. He is extremely protective at this time-if you waggle your finger in front of his cave, he will most certainly butt his head against it to ward it off! While not positive, I remember reading something about the substance being a fungus inhibitor. After two or three short days, the eggs hatch, and the male abandons his parental responsibilities of the youngsters. The tiny little fry have been described in size similar to the smallest eyelash, but if not predated on by their parents (which are now a plausible threat to the babies) they will grow quickly. The fry are not real picky about their sustenance, and while they may need infusorians early on, it isn't too long before they will take anything from brine shrimp to ground up fish flakes. In well planted tanks with several caves, the process should easily take care of itself.

Least Killifish
If you would like to avoid the hassles of egglayers though, the Least Killifish (Heterandria formosa) is a good choice. Despite the name, the Least Killifish is really a tiny guppy-like livebearer that reproduces similarly. As long as you have males and females in a reasonably healthy aquarium, they will produce a constant stream of live young. Best of all, their fry cannibalism rates are low, and can be all but eliminated if housed in a well-planted aquarium. BEWARE of accidentally obtaining a similar, but extremely aggressive fish known as a Mosquitofish (several species) AKA Gambusia. They are also livebearers, but they are so violently aggressive and nippy that they can easily hold their own with African cichlids of the same size (or theoretically sticklebacks, which I might try out in combination sometime in the future...). This is very different from the Least Killifish, which are very peaceful, even shy-ish fish.

Overview
These two fish are small, peaceful fish that feed well on your usual fish foods and breed at a great rate compared to others, so I felt that they were the best candidates to mention. But if you are more interested in cyprinids that school more tightly and breed in the scattering technique akin to zebra danios, there are actually a large number that are both small and can fill this need, examples are Red Shiners (Cyprinella lutrensis), Southern Redbelly Dace (Chrosomus erythrogaster), Blacknose Dace (Rhinichthys atratulus), some shiners in the subgenus Hydrophlox, and many many others. They are hardy and adaptable, colorful when in breeding condition, and usually only need the water to dip cooler than usual (if your tank is at 75 degrees, a dip to 68 or lower plus water changes usually trips their triggers) and ideally a well planted tank. Feeding them live foods increases your chances exponentially. Many non-cyprinids are hardy and easily bred as well given the space, like the colorful and intelligent Perciforms such as darters and sunfishes. Feel free to expirement! You may just end up breeding a native species in an aquarium that has never done so before.

Last words: One of the most exciting experiences in fishkeeping is watching your fish color up beautifully and breed. Best of luck!

EDIT: Wow, this took so long to type I didn't notice Erika's post... pygmy sunfishes are indeed consistent breeders that never get large.

Edited by Orangespotted, 25 October 2011 - 09:59 PM.

I suceeded in breeding Banded Killifish before. It was easy as they did all the work themselves. All I had to do is wait until the population eventually winnowed down to the point where eggs and young could survive the adults.

Sadly I am down to one banded now so now more breeding.

I feed the adults live grindal worms, frozen bloodworms, and live bloodworms. The fry eat live microworms.

Oops, I meant to say live grindal worms, frozen bloodworms, and live Californian blackworms. Typo.

And Notropis chrosomus is spelled with a u.

Edited by EricaWieser, 26 October 2011 - 06:54 AM.

I'd have to agree with Erica. The Elassoma are pretty easy to breed. Just put a pair in a two gallon windowsill tank with lots of java moss, throw in some blackworms every two or three days, and young fish will eventually start showing up.

Rosy reds/fatheads are a good choice, too. Like Orange spotted said, the store bought version needs to be quarantined for a good long time to make sure they aren't carrying anything. In my experience, you need to buy a lot of them, because most of them will die. Long day lengths are the major spawning trigger and you'll get big batches of them if you leave the lights on for 14-16 hours a day. Once the eggs have been deposited, I remove the "cave" to another tank, and put an airstone near it to keep the water circulating, otherwise, the adults will eat the fry.

Other easy natives are the livebearers, sailfin mollies and gambusia.

Hey I was just curious as to if there is a small native fish that is simple to breed, just like say the zebra danio is. Would love to raise up an interesting small native schooling fish that was locally bred.

Thanks

Hey wow thanks everyone, that is some fantastic information.

The plan is to collect my own, however its turned fairly cold up here in Ontario Canada, so I dont know how much collecting I will be able to do this year, but I will plan to make i my project for next year

I don't think a single species that I mentioned can be found in Ontario. You'd have to do some research on what is found near you. The official government website claims that there are 154 species of freshwater fish in Ontario, Canada, so that's good news. Unfortunately their website focuses on the game species, not the small fishes, so I'm not sure what cool tiny species you have. The closest I could come was a list of the permitted baitfish species, link: http://www.mnr.gov.o...age/198684.html

It seems like you would have to read a book like The ROM Field Guide to Freshwater Fishes of Ontario by Erling Holm, Nick Mandrak, and Mary Burridge to get an idea of the complete list of species.

Edited by EricaWieser, 30 October 2011 - 11:19 AM.

I'm also interested in starting breeding, but I'm new to this topic, therefore I gather all the information which I can get. Many thanks to all the suggestions in this thread. The Fathead Minnows sounds like a breed where I could start easily with! I want a breed with a low cannibalism rate.
I will do my best *hehe*