# Breeding Rasboras (Chili, Exclamation Point, Dwarf and Merah)



## cobra (Feb 4, 2005)

If they breed you are going to likely end up with a hybridized mass of Rasboras. Oops, you said one by one in the 10 gallon! 

Hope it works out 

Cheers,
G


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## Jirajustin (Oct 14, 2015)

Haha I hope not! Really excited to see what happens though! 
I'll me making a journal about the experience in a week or so. 
As far as I'm aware, though some Boraras may hybridise it is rather uncommon, and any fry are sterile. I will be taking a controlled approached to breeding however, and moving the fish into a new setup temporarily to spawn


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## tapwater (Mar 31, 2016)

what is that plant in the background - kinda awesome!


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## Jirajustin (Oct 14, 2015)

tapwater said:


> what is that plant in the background - kinda awesome!


To the left is Elantine Triandra, and to the right is Didiplis Diandra. 
Both very hardy species of ste, plants which grow quite fast. 
My Sparkling Gouramis made their bubble nests amongst the leaves before I sold them. Very good light breaker and canopy.


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## WaterLife (Jul 1, 2015)

Very cool!

I was going to stock the different species together as well, but am deciding to just stick with a larger group of one species (leaning toward B. brigittae) for them to breed.

Do you notice any unique behavior differences between the species? One species happen to be more shy or more aggressive than the others? Notice any harassing shrimp?
Do the different species interact with one another?

I don't know much on breeding them, but I think I heard lower pH (not sure on exact number) is better.

For your breeding project, I am thinking it may take longer than expected. When you take a group and put them in the 10 gallon, they can take quite a long time to settle in before feeling comfortable enough to breed. Usually larger tanks can have quicker breeding results, though a 10 gallon for these little guys should work. Heavily planting (more cover) the tank would speed things up. Look into what water parameters breeders have found to be best, and look what other spawning triggers there are. Most fish get in breeding mood when conditioned with high protein diets (live foods, or frozen worms, etc).


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## GrampsGrunge (Jun 18, 2012)

Aren't all of those fish coming from peat filtered, blackwater streams?

I can't help but think they'd be similar to breeding Harlequin Rasboras, although these little Rasboras probably have more in common with those little micro Danions like Paedocypris Progenetica,









Soft water + tannics + low light levels + plants to spawn under/against.

And also Seriously Fish also has a page about keeping and breeding them..Boraras merah (Rasbora merah) ? Seriously Fish


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## Betta132 (Nov 29, 2012)

Put a couple tubs of water outside, get yourself some mosquito larvae. Great live food for conditioning breeders.


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## Jirajustin (Oct 14, 2015)

WaterLife said:


> Very cool!
> 
> I love Brigittae! I'm in Australia though, so they're really difficult to get as they are no longer on the legal live import list, and Bio-security in this country is very strong.
> 
> ...


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## Jirajustin (Oct 14, 2015)

Update: 

Here's the new 10 gallon. Aquasoil in the bottom. Built in over flow filter... So I'm going to have to make sure the grate holes are covered up properly... hmmm.... 

The second image is just to give you an idea of what I currently have on me. 

Please feel free to make suggestions about what you think will work well in it, and what won't. 

So far we have: 

x2 small pieces of very well aged bog wood. 
(Its starting to decompose actually, because its been left in my backyard out in the weather for so long! Hoping it will release some good tanins etc.) 

Blyxa Japonica. (A bushy plant visible to the right hand bottom corner of my tank where I have witnessed B. Uropthalmoides spawning.) 

Cryptocoryne. - (No experience with this plant, can anybody recommend varities and growing conditions? Is Aquasoil and minimal fertilisation enough to keep these pants healthy?) 

A bed of leaves from different varieties of tropical species. (I will be sourcing these leaves from the Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne) So if anyone knows any particular varieties of leaves or trees that would be beneficial give me a shout and I can probably track it down.) 

What next? 

Am I missing something? Should I add floating plants? Do tell


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## GrampsGrunge (Jun 18, 2012)

Jirajustin said:


> Bump:
> 
> Awesome pic you've got there! Padeocypris look very similar to Brigittae! I've never heard of them before!
> 
> ...


I should have mentioned that Padeocypris are the genus with two species of fish, both considered to be the world's smallest freshwater fish.

Padeocypris I think are supposedly more clear colored and rarely get larger than 0.3" SL. not sure if that's the other species in that image I have 1-1/2 month old White Cloud young that are bigger. 

I was using them as an example of what seems to be the breeding strategy of all these little Rasboras, (White Clouds also do this..) is that they are continuous spawners, their eggs are pretty large to their body size and the females lay them in small amounts often, instead of the usual, (like Tetras and Barbs) of a hundred or so all at once.

You might find that because they don't lay a lot of eggs in one sitting it might be to their advantage to leave the adults in the breeding tank for a week or so and allow the young to make their appearance. From what the author of the Seriously Fish article seems to be implying is that the parents can be left with the newly hatched young given dense enough plant cover, ( Java Moss/Fern and floating plants..) The babies will tend to hang out under leaves and against stems and other places of shelter. The key is to keep the adults well fed enough that any predation of the babies is minimal because they're too full of live food. Like someone else said raise some Mossie larvae.



Jirajustin said:


> Update:
> 
> Here's the new 10 gallon. Aquasoil in the bottom. Built in over flow filter... So I'm going to have to make sure the grate holes are covered up properly... hmmm....
> 
> ...


In the past I've done my breeding tanks substrate-less and filled with Water Sprite and Java Moss/Ferns with no filtering at all. I would at very least, place a fine pored sponge over the inlet side of the filter box and turn the flow down to minimum if possible. You don't want any moderate currents with egglayer fry. I've used just a 50 watt heater as a source of water motion, and honestly if you're going to do a long term breeding tank for these fish, it should already have the tannin releasing leaves/wood well aged in the tank/water the breeders are going into. They should also be well acclimated to the water conditions of the breeding tank, which will require than you attempt to lower the pH and soften their community tank's water to as close as possible of the breeding tank's. But this is all un-necessary *if* they are already spawning in their big tank! Why make more work for yourself? I'd use the same water conditions in the big tank to the breeder tank's, instead of setting up a special water conditions.


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## Jirajustin (Oct 14, 2015)

So recently I went into my LFS to pick up some substrate, and had a discussion with them about Boraras. 
The owner of the shop who had significant experience dealing with these species in Australia made an interesting suggestion when he asked me whether or not any of my Chili Rasboras (Boraras Brigittae) had broken lateral stripes. (The did. See images) 
He said that if a Chili Rasbora has a broken lateral stripe, it is not 'pure' and it is probably a cross. I was doubtful about this, and went away and did some research. 

On a forum post, he later suggested that the cross in question was that between Boraras Maculatus and Boraras Brigittae. 
Which would create Boraras Merah. 

Though this makes poetic sense because Maculatus have circular spots and are often very clear in colour, Brigittae is very solid in red colouration and has a strong lateral stripe and Merah has a ovular spot with colour running across its body laterally. 

But I am still very skeptical because studies by Kevin Conway have demonstrated that all five species are distinctly seperate. Merah is defintely not simply a cross between Maculatus and Brigittae, and when crosses of known individuals from Merah and Brigittae have been made, the young have been reported to be sterile. 

Merah and Brigittae are often confused, and I myself think that I got Merah in the group of Brigittae that I recently bought. 

Is it possible that they are all just Brigittae? Is it possible that we're looking at an undescribed species with intermediate patterning? 

Does anybody know of, or witnessed any successful crosses between Boraras with viable young? 
What's the deal here? 

(The pictures I have show two of what I think are Brigittae from my tank. They are quite young, so don't have strong colouration yet, but one has a full body lateral stripe and one does not. There is also an image of Maculatus that I also took, just for comparison. I'm very happy with the way the pictures turned out.) :laugh2::laugh2:


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## Jirajustin (Oct 14, 2015)

Bump:


GrampsGrunge said:


> In the past I've done my breeding tanks substrate-less and filled with Water Sprite and Java Moss/Ferns with no filtering at all. I would at very least, place a fine pored sponge over the inlet side of the filter box and turn the flow down to minimum if possible. You don't want any moderate currents with egglayer fry. I've used just a 50 watt heater as a source of water motion, and honestly if you're going to do a long term breeding tank for these fish, it should already have the tannin releasing leaves/wood well aged in the tank/water the breeders are going into. They should also be well acclimated to the water conditions of the breeding tank, which will require than you attempt to lower the pH and soften their community tank's water to as close as possible of the breeding tank's. But this is all un-necessary *if* they are already spawning in their big tank! Why make more work for yourself? I'd use the same water conditions in the big tank to the breeder tank's, instead of setting up a special water conditions.


Wow okay! Great to know. I didn't think that filtration would be such an issue. I'll defintely looking to have it as minimal as possible. And in fact now that I think about it, it may be the reason why I've not seen free swimming fry from my previous spawning of these fish (sucked into the big filter :surprise: ) 

You're also probably right about the water conditions needing to be matching in both tanks. I'll do my best to increase tannic levels with leaf litter slightly in my big tank and try to match the conditions in the wild, and that way I won't have to make to many changes in terms of water conditions for the new one. 

I have a wet/dry filter suspended from my big tank, so I can't change flow rate there, but its not that fast. I'll try and keep it consistent and see what happens. 

Cheers!



GrampsGrunge said:


> I should have mentioned that Padeocypris are the genus with two species of fish, both considered to be the world's smallest freshwater fish.
> 
> "They are continuous spawners, their eggs are pretty large to their body size and the females lay them in small amounts often, instead of the usual, (like Tetras and Barbs) of a hundred or so all at once."
> 
> You might find that because they don't lay a lot of eggs in one sitting it might be to their advantage to leave the adults in the breeding tank for a week or so and allow the young to make their appearance. From what the author of the Seriously Fish article seems to be implying is that the parents can be left with the newly hatched young given dense enough plant cover, ( Java Moss/Fern and floating plants..) The babies will tend to hang out under leaves and against stems and other places of shelter. The key is to keep the adults well fed enough that any predation of the babies is minimal because they're too full of live food. Like someone else said raise some Mossie larvae.


Yeah, I was looking at breeding methods used for CPDS and this came up quite often. Seriouslyfish was my first point of call when researching these fish, so I defintely too their points on board. 

I was thinking that once the tank is up, properly cycled and stable the weekly rotation would be a great idea. 
Its too cold for mossie larvae right now though! So I'm just using microworms. :smile2:


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## D.Farci (Mar 15, 2016)

Hey Jira, have you had any opportunities to place the B. brigittae in a lid-less/rim-less tank yet? Doing some research, it seems that people have 50/50 experiences with Chili's jumping out of their tanks - some have kept 100's over the years and been fine, while others have replaced 100's! Curious to see what you think. 

I've also heard about the brigittae-merah-maculatus conundrum. I don't have a distinct source (heard it from one fish expert who heard it from another, etc.), but one theory is B. merah are female B. brigittae! They often lack color and don't develop the entire lateral stripe like the bright red B. brigittae do. The fact that they are often found together is interesting in itself, but there's another little theory for you.


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## geekdad (Aug 7, 2014)

Any updates on your breeding project?


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## Toillion (Mar 8, 2018)

I'm guessing it didn't work out so well since the comments stopped?


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## Axelrodi202 (Jul 29, 2008)

If anyone has bred B. brigittae I'd be curious to know what temperature the tank was.


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