Mated pairs of fish for a 10 gallon

[ichthyogeek]

If you want to get as many breeding projects as possible in I’d do

-cardinals (either a pair or very small harem)
-sexy shrimp
-pom pom crabs (100% filter feeder so no risk)
-pair of snapping/pistol shrimp
-pair of pistol shrimp/prawn gobies

if you give the sexy shrimp an anemone/Duncan/zoas or something they’ll probably hang around there. Alternatively, you could keep rock flower anemones and do a breeding project with those as well

Agreed on the inverts and the shrimp/prawn gobies, but cardinals just have big mouths. Unless it was Apogon/Ostorhinchus parvulus, I wouldn't trust them with sexy shrimp...Trimmas or Psuedomugils would work instead though.

 

[PicassoClown04]

The threadfin cardinals I feel would be okay. Ive kept sexies with clowns and a cherub angel with zero issues over the past year. A close friend of mine is successfully keeping them with anthias, pyramid butterflies, and clowns and has maintained this for close to 3 years now. I wouldn’t trust a clown goby with them though.

 

[PicassoClown04]

Agreed on the inverts and the shrimp/prawn gobies, but cardinals just have big mouths. Unless it was Apogon/Ostorhinchus parvulus, I wouldn't trust them with sexy shrimp...Trimmas or Psuedomugils would work instead though.

Sorry, I meant threadfin cardinals, not banggai/PJ

 

[LordJoshaeus]

Yeah, I have no beef with only 1-2 spawning projects in the 10 gallon (pity I cannot have enough tankage for a 20 long, as that would make this so list so much longer!). I made a design for a fry raising setup for anything with pelagic larvae, based on what @Sallstrom depicted for breeding peppermint shrimp...how does this look?

This is not stated on the picture, but I was going to have two of those air powered denitrate filters (perhaps set slowly enough that denitrification would ensue), I was going to dose Isochrysis (about 25,000 cells/ml of the 5 gallon, captured on a 1 micron sieve) daily, HEAPS of Parvocalanus nauplii in the bucket (as many per ml as possible...I was doing some research on google scholar yesterday and discovered that herring larvae have an optimal copepod density of 120 per ml), the air lift pump driving the bucket will have a 100 micron or so filter over the intake and will have the output point towards the outside of the bucket (to encourage a circular flow). And yes...there will be a heater. Maybe an invisible one since I didn't draw it here

The bucket itself is 2.5 quarts, and the setup is designed for raising 12-24 fry (after some debacles with trying to raise hundreds of anabantoid fry at once, I don't want to take on a whole spawn of uber-delicate marine larvae that could then be hard to rehome).

 

[ichthyogeek]

It sounds like you're limited on how much water you can have in your apartment. That's maybe like, a 10 gallon for broodstock, a 10 gallon for larval rearing, and a 10 gallon for growout. Not including any live food cultures...

IMHO, I think that you should determine what fish you want to breed first, and then focus on what live food cultures you want to have. Many (if not all) of the invert larvae can function quite well on just baby brine shrimp. And depending on what species you choose, you may not need to go with Parvo...

Take dragonets, banggai cardinals, and Pseudomugils for example. I'm fairly certain I've heard that dragonet larvae survive fairly well on Tisbe nauplii. Psuedomugils I'm fairly positive can take rotifers as a first food. And banggai cardinal fry don't even need rotifers, they can just go straight to BBS. And if you're only culturing rotifers and BBS, that means you only really need to culture Isochrysis, since you can buy Nannochloropsis as a freezable paste.

Any reason why you're opting to go with a denitrator instead of something like chaeto? Or just plain doing water changes? If you're dosing Isochrysis, remember that if it's alive, that it'll also be sucking up nitrates as well.

 

[LordJoshaeus]

It sounds like you're limited on how much water you can have in your apartment. That's maybe like, a 10 gallon for broodstock, a 10 gallon for larval rearing, and a 10 gallon for growout. Not including any live food cultures...

IMHO, I think that you should determine what fish you want to breed first, and then focus on what live food cultures you want to have. Many (if not all) of the invert larvae can function quite well on just baby brine shrimp. And depending on what species you choose, you may not need to go with Parvo...

Take dragonets, banggai cardinals, and Pseudomugils for example. I'm fairly certain I've heard that dragonet larvae survive fairly well on Tisbe nauplii. Psuedomugils I'm fairly positive can take rotifers as a first food. And banggai cardinal fry don't even need rotifers, they can just go straight to BBS. And if you're only culturing rotifers and BBS, that means you only really need to culture Isochrysis, since you can buy Nannochloropsis as a freezable paste.

Any reason why you're opting to go with a denitrator instead of something like chaeto? Or just plain doing water changes? If you're dosing Isochrysis, remember that if it's alive, that it'll also be sucking up nitrates as well.

I forgot! The tank I drew is a 5 gallon for raising the young fry and perhaps juveniles, and I was intending to put chaeto in it...I just forgot to draw it. I like denitrate as a filter media, but I don't have to make the filter denitrifying. I would do frequent water changes for sure once the fry reach settlement, though I may do water changes late in the pelagic stage also. I was thinking of dosing small amounts of baking soda (about .5 degrees KH worth) daily to facilitate chaeto growth.

I have been torn between culturing Tisbe pods and culturing Parvocalanus...Parvos produce more nauplii by volume, while Tisbes produce more nauplii by surface area (eg between a 3 liter culture of Parvocalanus and a 3 liter culture of tisbe, the tisbe culture will produce more nauplii if the surface area is large enough). Tisbe are a mighty lot harder to kill than Parvocalanus, and will even eat prepared foods...my main concern is that the high-production Tisbe cultures I read about were given water changes every day or every other day to maintain good water quality, and this could be expensive. Assuming water changes every other day and algae as feed, the Tisbe proved to cost somewhat more per nauplii than Parvocalanus, but the jury of which I will choose is not settled yet...if I could get away with water changes every three days, the Tisbe would be the more economical option. I could probably culture rotifers, but REALLY wanted to include copepods in their diet.

Most pseudomugils would need rotifers or similar sized foods at birth, but P. cyanodorsalis fry are large enough to take brine shrimp immediately...and have a long incubation period to match.