I took the rainbows out of my cold room at Christmas. It was at 40 F and
9 hours of light. With in three weeks I had them at 15 hours of light and
between 60 and 65 F. For four weeks I had been watching them for any
changes in color, full females, swelling at the vent etc. I could see no
change and nothing to tell males from females. The only difference in any
of the fish was brighter red on two of the five fishes fins. Last Wednesday
I had the board meeting of the Greater Detroit Aquarium club at my house, I
made the statement that maybe I only had females. Thursday morning 5:30 AM
when I went down to the basement to feed the fish three of the five had
turned red. They are in a 15-gallon tank with a piece of plastic egg crate
material covered with netting, this has 25 half to one inch diameter rocks
on it. All the fish we crashing into the gravel the most active spawning I
have ever seen clouds of sperm could be seen as they spawned. When I got
home from work about 4:30 they were so much redder that it was as if they
had had no color before. A brilliant orange/red that seemed to be light
from within as if an electric light. Also a scattering of purplish blue
scale on their back. I have never seen any fish with a more electric color
not even neon tetras. The other two fish retained the normal color. I
gathered somewhere between 500 and 700 eggs. They colored up again on
Saturday with only a few eggs. They have not colored up since but still
show interest in the pile of gravel. The eggs started to hatch in 48 hour
with most hatched by 72 hours and now at about 100 hours only about 50 eggs
still haven't hatched. I have been told that they spawn over an extended
period of time. It is hard to believe, as the physical level of spawning
activity would have to kill these fish. Casper great minnows in the south
can't wait for Columbia.
Bob
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