Re: about Cyprinellas NANFA-L-- minnow breeding

Henry G. Tomasiewicz (henryt-in-uwm.edu)
Sun, 16 Apr 2006 09:25:57 -0500

Hi,
We feed our baby fish vinegar eels, a species of nematode, that we raise in
apple cider (50:50 apple cider and water) with quartered apples in it. We use
gallon jars I bought-in-Target. they can be kept for months-in-a time without
subculturing them. We raise a large number of fish and generally keep about 20
jars, but one could use about 5-6 jars worth. to harvest we pour the liquid
through a net and collect the eels onto a 10-20 micron screen that has been
mounted into a PVC reducer. We wash the eels fairly rigorously and then wash
them off into a beaker. If you are keeping the babies in static conditions,
you will need to adjust the pH to neutral or the pH the babies are being kept.
This is because the eels were grown in vinegar (aka acetic acid). We have found
from experience that if the pH is not adjusted over a few days of feeding the pH
will drop to 5 or so and kill all of the babies. The nice thing about vinegar
eels is that they are of varied size which means different size babies can feed
on them and they will live in the tank for 2-3 days- they do not ruin water
quality quickly and they are around for a longer period of time for the fish to
eat. We have also added some powder food to them before feeding and that has
increased our survival. Hope this helps.

HenryT

"The idea is to die young as late as possible" Ashley Montagu

Quoting anutej-in-loxinfo.co.th:

> I have some success with red shiner fry using powder-like dry food for
> fry, and cyclops when they are big enough [I have no BBS]. Microworms
> are eaten with gusto but somehow they seem to cause deformities so now
> I would use them only when absolutely necessary. Fry of other
> Cyprinellas I had kept are much easier to rear. Generally they are
> stronger swimmers and grow faster.
>
> Tony
>
>
> Peter Unmack wrote:
> >
> > On Sat, 15 Apr 2006 anutej-in-loxinfo.co.th wrote:
> >
> > > Of all Cyprinellas I had bred red shiners are the easiest to spawn
> > > [almost always ready], but their eggs seem smallest and their young
> > > are the hardest for me to rear. Greenfins and others either have
> > > larger eggs or easier to rear youngs.
> >
> > That's a good point. Allan Semeit's article suggested fry were small, but
> > he fed baby brine and crushed flake food and-in-least some of them made it
> > through ok. What have you tried feeding your baby red shiners?
> >
> > One food that is popular with rainbowfish people in Australia is
> > vinegar eels. Would seem to me that these would be great for smaller baby
> > minnows too small for baby brine shrimp. But does anyone here on this use
> > them-in-all? I wrote an article in AFM a few years ago on them, a similar
> > version to that can be found here,
> > http://www.peter.unmack.net/papers/1996.vinegeel.rt.html
> >
> > Cheers
> > Peter
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/ Association (NANFA). Comments made on this list do not necessarily
/ reflect the beliefs or goals of NANFA. For more information about NANFA,
/ visit http://www.nanfa.org Please make sure all posts to nanfa-l are
/ consistent with the guidelines as per
/ http://www.nanfa.org/guidelines.shtml To subscribe, unsubscribe, or get
/ help, visit the NANFA email list home page and archive at
/ http://www.nanfa.org/email.shtml