- Joined
- Oct 27, 2019
- Messages
- 263
- Reaction score
- 264
Hey all,
I'm aware that - in order to have high numbers of surviving offspring - generally speaking one has to resort to specialized tanks for breeding, or at least grow-out of the fry, and pay particular attention to having live food cultures available of the proper size before metamorphosis. Honestly the level of success that breeders have had with this is stunning, when you consider in the wild it must be the case that even if fish broadcast spawn tens of thousands of eggs, on average each mated pair must have only two offspring which reach adulthood and reproduce themselves.
I'm really not so much interested in breeding for fun and profit at this time. But I am interested, for my next tank, in trying to set up as diverse and mature of a tank as possible, which can generate as many forms of "natural food" for the tank livestock as possible. This likely means letting my display tank mature for a long time with high-quality live rock and a deep sand bed, and stocking in a very minimal manner, so when I do get to adding fish, they can get by with limited supplemental feedings.
I'm curious about what fish can - presuming they avoid getting eaten by other tank residents - survive in low numbers from hatch to metamorphosis within a main tank system - if not in the display tank, then in the sump or fuge, away from munching mouths. It seems this is pretty much limited to saltwater-conditioned Sailfin Mollies and the occasional Banggai Cardinal, but if there are other examples I'm all ears.
I'm aware that - in order to have high numbers of surviving offspring - generally speaking one has to resort to specialized tanks for breeding, or at least grow-out of the fry, and pay particular attention to having live food cultures available of the proper size before metamorphosis. Honestly the level of success that breeders have had with this is stunning, when you consider in the wild it must be the case that even if fish broadcast spawn tens of thousands of eggs, on average each mated pair must have only two offspring which reach adulthood and reproduce themselves.
I'm really not so much interested in breeding for fun and profit at this time. But I am interested, for my next tank, in trying to set up as diverse and mature of a tank as possible, which can generate as many forms of "natural food" for the tank livestock as possible. This likely means letting my display tank mature for a long time with high-quality live rock and a deep sand bed, and stocking in a very minimal manner, so when I do get to adding fish, they can get by with limited supplemental feedings.
I'm curious about what fish can - presuming they avoid getting eaten by other tank residents - survive in low numbers from hatch to metamorphosis within a main tank system - if not in the display tank, then in the sump or fuge, away from munching mouths. It seems this is pretty much limited to saltwater-conditioned Sailfin Mollies and the occasional Banggai Cardinal, but if there are other examples I'm all ears.