# Breeding Rainbows (pseudomugil gertrudae)



## Captivate05 (Feb 23, 2010)

I know these guys are considered easy for egg layers, and I want to actively try to get a few fry before my Gertrudaes get too old. I got some babies from them just in their tank before, but I haven't seen any since, and the babies didn't make it.

So I'm going to take a more hands-on approach.

I figure the first step is to condition them. I have some starter culters of Grindal worms, microworms, and vinegar eels coming to me, and I can get the bbs hatcher back out and ready to go. They've already been flaring and chasing each other, so I'm guessing they love my tap over here. I'll condition them for a week after I get the culture up and running.

After a week, I'm planning on dropping a spawning mop into the tank, and letting it sink to the bottom. I read from several sources that they prefer their mop on the bottom of the tank, and when I noticed them spawning before, it was always at the base of the rotalas. I guess if I'm super lucky, I can get some cory eggs too, but that's not really what I'm planning for.

After a week, I'll remove the mop and examine it for eggs. If I'm lucky, I'll atleast have a few eggs I can work with. I'll place them in a shallow dish of water from the parent tank, and do partial water changes with a syring every day. I'll have a 5.5g tank up with a sponge filter aging in the parent tank, ready to receive fry. Plants will be java moss, hornwort, and some sort of floater (probably duckweed). A couple leaves on a bare bottom, to buffer the water and culter infusoria.

After 14 to 21 days, I should start getting fry. I'll move them with an eye dropper to the fry tank. They will receive vinegar eels at first, then when they get big enough I'll give them bbs and microworms twice a day. Fresh water changes everyday with aged water from the parent tank. After a couple weeks, I'll introduce them to crushed flake food and frozen daphnia.

After they are about three months old, I should be able to pick out which fry I wish to keep, and which fry I can take to my LFS. The fry I keep will be acclimated to the parent tank, and moved over.

Sound like a plan? I thought I'd run it past some people who know what they're doing before committing some horrible blunder. If you have suggestions, please let me know!


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## AW0L (Jan 15, 2004)

Ive gotten mine to breed on california black worms but once the fry are able to swim out of the plants the adults eat them or the my badid badis fry eat them they spawned in my riccia.


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## unissuh (Jun 5, 2006)

Water doesn't seem to matter too much, they spawn for me from pH 7-8, GH 1-15+. This is one fish I've never had a problem conditioning, NLS pellet once a day and they've been continously spawning for months now.

I've noticed a few places say they prefer spawning mops at the bottom but IME this doesn't hold true. I have several magnet cleaners with various mosses growing from them all the way down one wall and they always spawn on the top one. Tried moving them around to see if they prefer a particular type of moss, but it seems to be the location rather than moss type. Think the main thing here is to make sure it's thick so they can't find their own eggs again to eat, have some trouble with this.

I don't know if I'd bother taking out the mop to examine for eggs, or put them into a saucer. Why not just make 2-3 and swap a different one between hatching tank/spawning tank every week? Eggs take ~2 weeks (I think) to hatch.

Also not sure if they're big enough to take vinegar eels straight out of the egg, may have to try with something smaller for a few days to start off with.


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## Captivate05 (Feb 23, 2010)

My fry (when I had them) were too small to eat bbs, but not by much. Maybe they had grown on some infusoria before I noticed them...

I read in one article that their gertrudaes spawned on water lettuce roots. I figure since I noticed mine always spawning on the bottom of the tank, I would try there first. If they didn't like it, I could always move it.

I debated in maybe just tossing the whole spawning mop into the fry tank, and see if they hatch. But it seemed doing small water changes daily would be more difficult on a larger tank.

As for conditioning, mine did great on frozen daphnia, bbs, and Hikari micro pellets. I originally got the worms for my habrosus corys, because they weren't doing so hot. I figure the rainbows will gladly gobble them up too


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## unissuh (Jun 5, 2006)

I'd start up some infusoria cultures just incase, never hurts to have 'em. Learning this one myself the hard way right now. :icon_frow

Maybe spawning location has to do with the strain of P. gertrudae one has where they spawn - mine come from the Wenlock, do you know whether yours are from a different locality or PNG? I notice a lot of 'net "reports" say they spawn at the bottom but local comments seem to mainly say at the top.

Might be a silly question, but why waterchange with unhatched eggs? Shouldn't be feeding, so no waste generated.


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## mgamer20o0 (Mar 8, 2007)

i had mine spawn on the roots of water lettuce. 

i would move the adults to the 5.5 then pull them so they wont eat the fry. if you had more tanks you could easy move them from tank to tank as they spawn.


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## Captivate05 (Feb 23, 2010)

My fiance limited my tanks. I can only work with what I have...

As for water changes, it never hurts to keep things fresh. Most places reccomend it, so I thought I would implement it in my little experiment.

I'm not sure were mine came from. Being in the US, they're just marked Gertrudae Rainbows. I'd like to get my hands on some Aru II's though.


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