I have been wanting to produce some Steelcolor Shiners for a few years now and it has taken me some time to get a good group of them and get them into condition to make a good try at this. Last summer I gave them a try in an outdoor setup in my backyard but either I put them in too late in the year or they just did not like something about the set up.
I have not bred very many fish in aquariums, I have been much more successful breeding fish in outdoor ponds in my yard. That being said though Cyprinella species of shiners have been my one group I have had pretty good success with in aquariums. Actually my first aquarium bred species was C. spiloptera spotfin shiner back in 1999 or maybe 2000 while still in high school. Since then I have spawned Bannerfin Shiner, Tricolor Shiners, and most recently Red Shiner. So I thought why should Steelcolor Shiners be any different. I gave my group of 10 (6m 4f) their own 75 gallon tank back in late October when I brought them in from the outdoor setup. I began feeding them a lot (flake, blood worms, mysis shrimp) to fatten them up and did my usual Cyprinella spawning set up of a stack of some slate/flat rocks in front of a powerhead to provide crevices for them to lay their eggs in...
After a couple months of nothing happening I figured it was time to start making some slight changes. I added a few more spawning options including some left over pieces of tile from a recent bathroom remodel (Thanks Matt) and increased the temp from the 66-68 F my tanks naturally stay at in my basement to 72 F with a heater.
They definitely seemed to like the heat and I went from 2 of the 6 males being colored up to all but the smallest one showing off color(red/pink noses, yellow lower fins, and fluorescent blue/green/opaque white edges to fins), greatly enlarged dorsal fin, and tubercles on the head, smallest one quickly coming along. Pictures of the group but hard to get a good shot in this tank because no lights on it...
Better photo from a previous display tank occupant...
and photo tank shots for good measure...
And not long after making these changes and the males getting more colored up I found a few eggs in between some of the original pieces of slate. My wife said well maybe they like the larger spaces between the slate better then the narrow spaces between the tiles. So I thought why not, and put a few pieces of gravel on one end of the tiles...
That was last Wens and Thurs morning there were hundreds of eggs between the tiles too. The nice thing about Cyprinella shiners is you can take the rocks/or tiles that you stacked up as spawning sites out of the spawning take and place them in a smaller tank with the eggs still attached in a smaller tank for hatching. I like to lean these flat rocks or tiles up against the side of the smaller tank to make the eggs easy to view and watch development. In this case the breeder tank is a 75 gallon tank and the rearing tank a well seasoned 20 long that I have intentionally let get a little dirty to allow algae and other tiny organisms to grow in and help be a first food for the soon to hatch fry...
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