RE: NANFA-L-- minnow breeding

Bruce Stallsmith (fundulus-in-hotmail.com)
Fri, 14 Apr 2006 17:33:56 -0400

I think that any of the Cyprinellas are easy to spawn, as long as you feed
them well and keep them in a largeish tank. And the various Hydrophlox
species in Notropis seem to be easy; they're-in-least obvious as they color
up.

--Bruce Stallsmith
along the summery Tennessee
Huntsville, AL, US of A

>From: Peter Unmack <peter.lists at>
>Reply-To: nanfa-l-in-nanfa.org
>To: nanfa-l <nanfa-l-in-nanfa.org>
>Subject: NANFA-L-- minnow breeding
>Date: Fri, 14 Apr 2006 16:17:03 -0500 (CDT)
>
>G'day folks
>
>I've been thinking a bit lately about good species to suggest to beginners
>trying to keep and breed natives. For the moment I only want to consider
>minnows (Cyprinidae) to keep the discussion more manageable. A bit later
>I think I'll bring up the question in other groups.
>
>My experience with breeding minnows is pretty limited. But the two
>easiest species that I know to spawn are red shiner (Cyprinella lutrensis)
>and fathead minnow (Pimephales promelas). I never spawned bullhead minnow
>(Pimephales vigilax), but they should be pretty easy too.
>
>In addition to being relatively easy to spawn, each of those species are
>pretty tolerant of a wide range of conditions, are generally pretty hard
>to kill and they are mostly widespread, thus a little easier to get.
>They are also reasonably attractive fish, although not as brightly colored
>as some species. And they also tend to spawn-in-a reasonably small size
>and they don't get especially large. They also don't need any tricky cool
>down period, and as long as their lights are on ~14 hours a day they
>should be in spawning mode with sufficient temperatures. And I think
>their fry can all be started on baby brine shrimp too. All of these
>traits make them relatively good beginner species to try and breed.
>
>Some my question for everyone is what do you think are the easiest minnows
>to spawn besides those I just mentioned? You don't have to have bred them
>per se, thus it can be based on your impression of what is easy to breed.
>I haven't done any reading or literature searches on any of this, so feel
>free to point out obvious stuff. Any thoughts and ideas are welcome (even
>if they don't meet all of my criteria above).
>
>Cheers
>Peter Unmack
>Provo River, Utah
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