Wanna start breeding...

ledsrevenge4

I am new to both this forum and breeding fish. I was wondering what kind of fish to breed, what I should have in my tank, and where can I get some good fish?

I used to have fish and I want to start again, I have a 5-7 gallon plastic tank (working on getting a glass), a breeder thing (put females in, up to 2, and babies fall through bottom slats, about 4 x 7 inches). I also have fish flakes (tropical) and aquariam salt.

I had wanted to get started with guppies, I had the most gorgeous male (sadly passed away, my cusins fault) and I had gotten him at petsmart/walmart, I can't remember, but I want to get some of an actual strain, not hybrids.

What I'm thinking about:
guppies
mollies
platies
bettas (eventualy! yay!)

I already read everything in the forum on breeding bettas, mollies, and guppies and would love it if you would help me out a little. Sorry to write soo much :D

Mrmofo

convicts r pretty easy to breed, fed my pair 5 times of the frozen brine shrimp n they have laid eggs 5 times about 4 days after i gave it to them each time...just make sure there the only 1 in the tank!

fish_4_all

Well I would start with either mollies, platties or guppies. Bettas take a little more energy and a lot more tanks to keep them and raise them to adult.

The first thing to really consider is where can you get rid of the offspring. LFS may take them but not all will. Chain stores rarely will take them.

The next thing is don't use those plastic breeder traps. They stress out the fish too much. If you don't want to get a lot of plants, use the net breeders with some Anacharis/elodea in them for hiding spots for the fry.
Feeding is easy, just crush up fish flakes to a fine powder and the fry will eat it readily.

Now the important thing, tank size. I don't know what size your plastic tank is but two 10 gallon tanks are really needed to breed with any true success. One for the adults and one for the fry. A 20 gallon is best so you have room for a breeder net and the adults and also so that you can have more than 10 fish in the tank.
10 gallon 20 gallon
Guppies: 25 60
Platties: 10 25
Mollies: 10 25
Convicts: couldn't tell ya but they do require a little more work to breed and to keep the fry alive

All the numbers are a combination of adults and fry, not adults. Overcrowding will lead to bad water conditions and very few if any fry surviving.

ledsrevenge4

even though plastic places stress them out a bit they are good for seperating mean fish, I had to seperate my big Guppy from the littler one cause he would follow him around and bug him.

herefishy

Almost any livebearer is a good fish to start with. Most have very few special accomodations that need to be made. If left in a community tank, I would provide plants for the young to hide in.