Any advice on breeding Chela dadiburjori?

[Crystal]

I have 7 Chela dadiburjori which I am trying to breed (common name: orange hatchetfish, orange hatchet danio, dadio, etc). I have previously breed (by accident) leopard danios, but I am looking for suggestions for breeding these hard to find beauties. Most sites claim that they are hard to breed, but I have found these also say they are frail, while I find them hardier than most of my fish.

I am feeding them up with frozen+flake foods. A common suggestion is to seperate male from female, but there is VERY little difference between them, 1-2 I know are female and 1 I know is male, the rest are about average. The fish are about 1 yr old. I plan to put them in a seperate breeding tank to lay the eggs, removing the parents in 2-3 days or when I see eggs. I have a seperate breeding tank ready with mesh to seperate them from the eggs, with plants both anchored and floating, water is a bit cooler with an airstone for some current. My Ph is about 7.4 (near impossible to change due to natural buffering), temp 20C, ammonia/nitrate/nitrite 0. The tank receives early morning light.

Any other advice/suggestions? I can use all the help I can get as this is my first intentional breeding of egglayers.

[jvision]

Once the adults are conditioned (females nice and plump) you can usually get them to spawn by doing a big WC (over 50%) with cooler water. It makes them think it's the rainy season. Sometimes you may need to use RO water, or coordinate your timing with a big storm b/c the fish feel the barometric change.

Good luck!

[gobies et al]

I am assuming they breed like danio's. I have never attempted to raise fry from the danio's that I have had, but did look into it. I took this excerpt from Celestial Pearl Danio Forum, as it covers most of what I can recall off hand.

Anyways I have been breeding danios my whole life. I have bred blue, leopard, gold, giant, zebra, pearl, and glo-fish. I am probably leaving a couple of different varieties out. It didn't matter if they were long finned or short finned I have bred them all in one of these two different ways: 1) I place about 6 of them into a plastic breeding trap usually used for livebearing fish such as guppys, swordtails, etc. I have already prepared a 10 gallon aquaruium with nothing in it but a sponge filter and a heater if needed. I then just leave them alone and when I wake up the next morning I run into my fishroom and look in the breeding tank to discover sometimes over 500 eggs on the bottom of the tank. That number is always based on how well I conditioned the fish before hand. I then simply remove the breeding trap with the parents in it back to their community tank and wait for the eggs to hatch for their first taste of infurosia, walterworms, and BBS. 2) The second method I use is also very simple. First I fill a 10 gallon tank up half way full of water. I then take a tupre ware container and fill it with about 2 to 3 inches of marbles so that the parents can't get to the eggs. I place the container on the bottom of the bare tank. Once again the only other things that should be in the tank are a sponge filter and a heater if needed. I then add the well conditioned parents in, usually anywhere from 6 to 20. After the second day I then remove the container of marbles very carefully being sure not to spill any thing from inside the container into the aquarium. I then carefully remove the marbles so I can get an idea of how many eggs I have gotten from this spawn. I then remove the parents from the breeding tank and place the container of eggs back in making sure there is not a large temperature difference in the water from the container and the water in the tank. Then I just wait a couple of days and wah-la baby danios everywhere. Both of these methods have worked very well for me ever since I was a child.

I recall reading of someone else having success with vacuuming the gravel in his danio tank, and not emptying emptying the bucket of water obtained. Some days later observed there were fry that had hatched in the bucket.

Another suggestion was have a sponge filter running in another tank and move this to your fry tank after hatching to provide the first food for the fry when their yolk sack is used up.

Good luck, and keep us posted.

[Crystal]

I have several breeding traps that I previously used for my guppies. I am not sure how well it would for danios though, danios are stream fish and require room to swim to get enough oxygen. The oddest thing about these danios is that they are shy and easily spooked, I am not sure how they would fair in a small space with several others. I will try it though, I will just do it on a weekend when I can keep my eye on them in case of problems.

Thanks for the suggestions, I will have to try them.

We had a huge storm roll though a day after I put them in the breeding tank, I removed them a day and a half later (yesterday) because I suspected eggs.

How large would their eggs be? I would think the eggs/fry would be very small, as the leopard danios are almost twice the size of the Orange hatchet danios. The leopard danio fry were very tiny and even when you knew they were there it was hard to spot them.

[gobies et al]

I like your original plan of breeding net, coarse enough for eggs to drop through easily, but fine enough for parents to not get through.

Another person separated the sexes for ~ 5 days, a divider or 2 tanks but still able to see the others, feeding "live" food, to condition them, and then putting together in the spawning tank for a few hours.

My danio's were very thorough in removing eggs / fry as I never saw any young from them. I never saw any eggs either, just lots of activity. I would expect their eggs to be very tiny considering the size of them and how large the spawn can be.