Aquarium Advice - How to Breed Fish in an Aquarium by Pondguru

Hello again, this is a very quick video explaining the processes of breeding fish. Really in order to get fish to breed you need to make the water right. I've got two examples of different types of water behind me. In this one we've got some small Tanganyikan shell dwellers called Neolamprologus multifasciatus which are little things about two inches long. They like shells to breed in so we put shells. They like hard water so we've got some Rock there to harden the water and next door to them, in a different tank, we've got some killifish, they prefer the water soft, so in this tank we've got bog wood and that helps to keep the pH low for them. That's the beauty of having a shop where you've got individual tanks. You can have hard water fish sitting next to soft water fish. To get the water right for hard water fish, pretty easy, put a piece of tufa rock or ocean rock or something like that in. Raises the pH, hardens the water, makes it sweet for the fish. Chances are they're going to breed. Soft water fish, it's a little bit more difficult. They tend to be a little bit more finicky to breed. So you can use the following things to make the water just right for them. An excellent way to reduce the pH and keep it at a low level, around about 6.5 or thereabouts, is the peat balls. We use these all the time in the shop. In fact, you can see one just behind me in the tank here. pH starts to creep up, we give it a squeeze. It tends not to creep up, but just to demonstrate how we use these peat balls when people come in, we tend to give it a squeeze anyway. Almond leaves, they help to condition the water, i.e. they reduce the pH. They also release a lot of trace elements, which help your plants. Healthy plants in a nice soft water tank also encourage the fish to breed, especially angels and so on. If you have Amazon swords with big long leaves, the angels have quite possibly spawned up and down the leaves. Almond leaves also release antibacterial and antifungal properties into the water, which help to protect any eggs from attack. Again, to lower the pH, bogwood probably is the most common one. It's one everybody will recognise as lowering the pH. Pretty similar to the peat in that it lowers the pH. Once it's done, it's done though. It tends to just release it all in one go, and then it's done. The peat, unless you're squeezing it all the time, lasts a lot longer than the bog wood. The good thing about the bog wood, tie plants to it. You can also add a bit of decoration. The peat balls don't really add much decoration to your tank. And by sticking a sucker on the back, stick that on the side of your tank, and it won't take up any of the valuable space in your tank. So once you've got the water sweet for your fish, Are they going to spawn or aren't they going to spawn? Well they're going to have to have something to spawn on or in and many of the soft water species like to spawn in caves. The likes of your Epistogramma species of dwarf cichlids like to spawn in little caves so coconut shells are quite often used. I actually stick suckers on the back so I can stick it on the side of the tank again keeps it up off the bottom means you clean the tank a lot easier so that's a pretty good cave. Bristlenose and other plecos also will spawn in here. You can of course buy ready-made caves, it's a resin cave, pretty good for bristlenose, also your Epistogrammas as well. You'll probably find that rams will spawn on leaves, if you have a couple of almond leaves held down by a rock or something, they tend to curl up, your rams most likely will spawn straight onto the leaves, which is very good because with these having antifungal and antibacterial properties, if the eggs are laid directly onto here you get a very good hatch rate. The likes of killifish and also Corydoras prefer to spawn in roots from natural plants, trees and so on, by the sides of ponds or slow-moving rivers. Because in a tank you haven't got a tree grown next to it with loads of roots, you can put the next best thing in which is that. It's a spawning mop. It's basically nice thick wool. This is actually acrylic so It's colour fast, colour won't come out in your tank, won't release any toxins or anything. Got a polystyrene bead there, which helps to keep it up on the top. Your killifish will go in here, spawn in here, whip this out, take the eggs out, put them in a breeding container with a few alder cones or something, protect them against fungus and bacteria, and you're on your way. This one's approximately 35 to 40 centimetres long, and whilst it is obviously suitable For killifish to go in, it's also very good for Corydoras, because unless they've got a really high tank, this is going to be trailing on the ground, and the Corys can come up, drive up into here, and fill this with eggs. We do the smaller breeding mops in packs of three, you'll find a link in the description below, and we do the big super ones, they're singles. In the description below you'll find a link to my ebay page. The spawning mops, peat balls, Almond leaves and all the cones, as well as other stuff, is for sale. A really good natural helper in your tank, if you have a very small fry or eggs that are just about to hatch, is snails. A lot of snails, especially if you feed them on lettuce and so on, produce waste in the water, which feeds infusoria, which is tiny microscopic creatures which the newly hatched fry will feed on. So they're pretty important as well. So basically, water quality, good. Good feeding, good varied diet, lots of nice frozen food, live food, a good variety of food, flake, pellets, all sorts, a nice environment, and also the right gear in the water, either your spawning mops or caves or something, and your fish will stand a much better chance of spawning, and also successfully rearing any fry. The less stressed fish are, the more likely they are to pair off and successfully breed. It's kind of the equivalent of putting me who hates towns in the middle of London and expecting me to go and find a mate and start breeding. You find me in the middle of the road going or taking somebody from the middle of a tower block or something, sticking them right out on the moors, same sort of thing would happen. Very stressful situation. Exactly the same with fish. If you've got soft water fish in a hard water tank, there's no way they're ever going to breed successfully. Likewise, if you've got hard water fish, the likes of Malawis, Tanganyikans, a lot of the live bearers, guppies, mollies, platys, all of them lot, stick them in a real low pH soft water tank. If it doesn't kill them, it certainly won't be very conducive to their breeding. Basically, to be successful at breeding, think of yourself as a water keeper, not a fish keeper. You're basically keeping water at a specific set of parameters which will suit whatever fish you've got. And if you do that successfully, and if you've got the right equipment in there, i.e. spawning mops, caves, nice broad-leaved plants, a bit of dappled shade or something for the likes of discus and so on, you're pretty much on your way. Thanks for watching.