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They look GREAT!!

Congratulations! /:'

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"it's the neck, it creaks under the weight of too much heavy thinking."

Thanks bean

See my profile (link below) for fish and setup.

Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.

13-15 more baby fry. What am I going to do? I need a much bigger fry tank. husband is not ging to love me. what size should I get?

See my profile (link below) for fish and setup.

Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.

You could trade some to your lfs for credits etc. I'd always keep as many as I could, but there are limits, and besides you dont want the next generation getting inbred. You could work out a trade, some of theirs for some of yours,that way you could keep your lineage healthy in the future. Just get em to a reasonable size, and move them on.

A 30 might be nice

I am thinking 30 too. I have all the equipment from the 30 I had before the 60. I am going to trade them in for supplies, but how big do they have to be and about how long does that take? I already have a fish store who whats them and are very excited about it. OH My, what did I get myself into?

See my profile (link below) for fish and setup.

Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.

To make sure they survive , id be tempted to keep them until they were about an inch long, and showing a distinctly more rainbowfish-like shape, although they still probably wont be showing much colour. Small fry often dont take moves well.Its better to sell them on as sub-adults rather than as neonates.

I think its highly admirable that you are in a position to pass them on, and probably may be in a position to keep doing so. If everyone could do that, most fish wouldnt need to be imported or wild caught so often. It all leads to the hobby being more self sustainable, and thats a good thing.

I too am excited about that. So much so that I have gone out and bought me a 30gal tank, just for them. I am kind of waiting until I have to clean there tank and instead put all of the water into the 30 so it would appear as a 1/3rd water change. Transfering all media, plants and what nots into the bigger tank. How do you think that will go over? I do not what what happened last time to happen again. Right now I have 8/8weeks olds and 11/1-7 day old fry. Just out of curiosity, about how long will it take for them to reach the 2" age? (I just hope 30 is big enought) I find about 2 new fry every other day.

See my profile (link below) for fish and setup.

Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.

The time it takes to reach 2 inches is variable depending on temperature and diet, but they can sometimes be slow to mature. 2 inches takes 5-7 months on average.Its almost like boesmans have a kind of growth diapause. They can sometimes spend nearly a year between 1-2 inches and in their second year they put on a growth spurt andthey break over 4 inches and often go all the way up to 6 inches or so. Odd but true. The sexes often mature at different rates too, presumably this helps prevent inbreeding.

If I could I would set the new tank up using new materials from scratch, using fishless cycling. You had a fungal and protozoan problem in your existing tanks, so I would use the opportunity to break the chain of infection and give the youngsters their own new tank, with no shared water, filter media, or substrate. Its gonna happen when they go to a shop anyway, so you might as well see how it goes at home with you looking out for them.

The 10 gal is free of any crud. I have not had to treat that tank at all, the only problem I had with it was it went into a mini cycle and my NO2 & No3 spiked. I really don't want that to happen again, oh, and my heater went on the blink, heated the tank to over 90 and fried most of my fry. The 10 gal is now settled and was thinking it would be good to use that water. However, I would like to try and get the 30 going (fishless style before adding the fry and older equipment if at all possible. I am just not sure how to go about doing that.

See my profile (link below) for fish and setup.

Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.

Oh my Gosh, What I saw this morning!!!
Back Story, My husband and I get up at 5 AM and we turn on the kitchen lights, Tank lights don't go in until 6:45AM. My tank has no back drop so you can see throught it from both side. In the morning, if you look throught the front of the tank, it is back lit by the kitchen. This morning I was watching the fish (5:15)Rainbows (Male-Female) doing their thang. Then all of a sudden, Bang! about 200+ eggs go shooting accross the tank filling the tank with nothing but eggs on a string I thought to myself, DAM, where is the video,then think, wow, I could just but in the large fishnet and catch at least 100+ eggs (but what would I do with them) Then all the other fish are eatting away before they even have a chance to land. (now I know why they are not eatting in th mornigs as much) It was magic.

Just wanted to share.

See my profile (link below) for fish and setup.

Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.

Cooool.

Now you know why Im always running round the house with a net in the mornings shouting "get out of the way"!

I actually had a young platy die, many years ago ,overfed on rainbowfish eggs once. I post mortemed it and the gut was completely crammed full of rainbow eggs.At the time I didnt even know the rainbows were laying.I couldnt figure out why it was so overweight! Thats what you get for being a late riser Most of the spawns take place between 5.30 - 6.30 GMT in my house.Roughly at first light.

oh no, sorry to hear about you platty, and warning taken in. (what to do...) the spawning times are the same for me. 5-6am. After watching this morning, I am thinking she is not going to last long. He is such a pushy male and she is so exhausted, breathing hard and trying to get away from him. Then there are times when that just isn't true at all. How often does this happen, every morning,once a week, month? (ok, so it not once a month in this house, more.)

I have my frys in there new tank, cycled just as you said, all new longhaired, all new. They are now loving it, I will have to get pics and post soon.

Any other tidbits I should know????

See my profile (link below) for fish and setup.

Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.

Thats solved easily if you have the tankspace. More females generally means less stress than having just the one.Two males to four females is ok and three males to six females is better. Then the males spend most of their time bothering each other, and the females get a break, and even occassionally compete for the males attentions if they are heavy with eggs. Ive even seen 3 females queue up for the attentions of the dominant male, laying eggs near the same plant , one after another. Reproductive stress does kill both males and females, but males are generally tougher and live longer, so females are the more precious. Look after them, and the males pretty much take care of themselves. It only takes one male to service dozens of females (although I like to give the girls a choice- keeps the young healthy), but a male might harrass a single female to death within a year or so. Since you asked, that harrassment can be daily for at least 6 months split into two yearly sessions.Some rainbows breed incessantly under the right (or wrong depending on your point of view)conditions. In nearly all my species there is constant intermittant sexual activity throughout the year,even the unrelated species like the madagascans have started doing it too, so I HAVE to maintain reasonable sized groups.

Sometimes they stop, and then kick off again when I do water changes or move plants around. Tank rearrangements cause new properties to crop up, and the rainbows start all over again, rearranging themselves socially to vie for the new breeding ground, and once conquered, the females get heavy with eggs again and the males go into display overdrive.It might not look like a breeding ground to you- it might just be a plant, a stretch of gravel or a tank corner, but somebody will be keeping an eye on it,and in the few minutes before a spawn in will be guarded and defended by the dominant male , even if the courtship starts at the other end of the tank. The natural method of rainbow breeding is for the males to fight or mock fight and display, often with three or more females watching casually while cruising. The males wear each other out for up to an hour and then the females willingly submit and spawn after a quick swim around with the male. Without this situation the male will hound the female remorselessly. Male to male fighting keeps the situation more acceptable for the female, as hes generally too worn out in the courtship display to hound her for the rest of the day, and has a breeding area to loosely guard. Up the females to lessen the problem, and have two males of similar size.

Im finding pictus catfish very useful for hoovering up unwanted rainbow eggs. Theyre voracious enough to eat all that and go back for seconds without appreciably gaining weight.It does however mean a very early morning for me if there are eggs I actually want to keep.

Its one of those things. Lots of people never get rainbows to breed, but when you do, they just dont stop!

Horny little devils

Longhair, it's over. I didn't pull her out in time. She is gone.

See my profile (link below) for fish and setup.

Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.

or maybe not! after 30 mins, her in the QT she is swimming upright with balance and getting her color back. whopee/:'

See my profile (link below) for fish and setup.

Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.

no, I am losing her again. She was good for an hour, but i think that is going to be it.
Good-bye baby girl, good-bye.

See my profile (link below) for fish and setup.

Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.

She was probably exhausted from the previous months exertions, a damn shame, but it happens. Youre a good fish keeper, but your luck sucks!

Try starting out with a new social dynamic, 2-3 males, and around 6 females and all will go much better. If you only want one male its better to have 3-4 females.

You obviously cracked the conditions for breeding though, it would be a shame to stop now. Besides you have lots of babies on the way. Make sure they get their frozen livefoods and theyll spring up in no time. New stock will prevent inbreeding anyway. Id get a new male and a few new adult females though. If the females you buy are bigger than the males they do much better too.Shame you dont live closer, I could have let you have half a dozen.

I know you probably arent too pleased with the idea of having to buy, qt , and home new rainbows so soon after a loss, but they are better in groups. Sometimes just one or two start to fade out on their own. Boesmans arent the worst for doing that, so perhaps theres no rush, but Ive known herberts rainbows and others to fade out in a few weeks with no company. They are a very social species.

Youll lose a few here or there over the years, but then, youll also get a lot of babies. I tend to think that you have to think of them in a group rather than as individuals. Sooner or later youll get a dominant male who is calm and settled , and his reign might last 4 years or so(although more usually its 2-3 years) with no deaths, and his offspring tend to behave in a similar manner. Natural selection is strong in this species. Behaviour counts towards a groups viability.Often a late starting beta male will be a better authority in the tank than a hyper aggressive or promiscuous alpha male. Trouble is the faster growing and aggressive ones tend to survive in overcrowded shop conditions while the others wane. It usually takes a generation or two before things become settled as you might wish due to the time involved in the succession of leaders.

Rainbows do have interesting hierarchical behaviour though. I have a boesman who leads,while the other males are subdued sexually and peaceful, a kutubu partnership of two equal males, and the regals operate an equal trio of ruling males. The aus rainbows generally cause chaos most of the time, trying to bully and mate with anything that moves until one of the other species male dominants gets them to back down.They even make adult angelfish scatter! They can be complex and surprising.

The trick is to give them a big enough shoal to allow them a number of effective social dynamics. Once that is done they pretty much sort themselves out and live relatively peacefully with no individual dying young.

One thing you will notice about the babies though, is that they will get on very well together as they grow up if not seperated,kin are usually calm with one another, but eventually you will have to add rainbows to the shoal so that they can breed out weakness.

lol, did you want to know all that?

Wow, no, I didn't know all that. That is why i love this website, I have been taught so much by you all. Thank you. I will take your advice and try getting a larger group of rainbows. And I think I will keep my males out of the first seven, as they are 12 weeks old now, if they are a good mix. I am also going to keep the 30 gal just for Rainbows, for you had taught me, breeding won't start until 3 years old. In my new females with have to be bought via internet/shipped to me, because out here I am told they only come in once a year. That is why they want mine so badly. My two males in left in the tank are still showing bright colors, so I am hoping they are not missing her too much. (I wish I could put my 7 babies in now and that would make a difference, but I now they are just not fish yet so it wouldn't) And yes, I wish you were closer, I would make a trade with you. Well, I guess that is all. A new thread with comeup showing off my new fry.

Thank you longhaired once again.

See my profile (link below) for fish and setup.

Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.

I suppose I ought to clarify that the best breeding happens at around 3 years, but they can start at 18 months. Bigger (3 year old) females are much less likely to die of exhaustion though, and are better able to handle bullying. It is better to match the ages for breeding efforts. Adult males can bully immature males and unready females to the point of death. Matching sizes or bigger females helps things work out a bit.Putting the babies in with dad if the shoal sizes are too small can be a mistake.If he already has a harem of adults and other adult males to deal with, then you can usually get away with putting the subadults in too.

Thats kinda why my average tank size "evolved " to be around 120 gal It can be done in 40-55 gals though, no need to get as rainbow crazy as me