Apache's Catfish Community Thread.

so will snails eat eggs?

ok so i will cycle in my algae eaters an i think this is my one. http://www.petplanet.co.uk/product.asp?dept_id=167&pf_id=57624&utm_source=ShoppingFeed&utm_medium=cpc&gclid=CjwKEAiAjfq2BRDpmdHmssaW5xsSJABToP4luTHUS8WVNvM0Zm3ZxzZjVhdCHLUtIlPQXiEJq5YtfRoCs8vw_wcB

My feeling is that it would be OK to spawn panda cories, then remove the adults to a bigger tank and use the small one to hatch the eggs and grow on the fry.

Nerite snails won't eat eggs and they will eat algae.

The tank is far too small for any algae eating fish.

The gestation period is about 4 weeks.

Breeder nets can stress the female, making her either hang on the fry or abort the eggs. Lots of people do use them successfully but remove the female once she has given birth.
Do you mean the nets that are held by a frame that clips onto the side of the tank? If that's what you mean, you may well find the female eats all the fry as they'll be in the same container with her.
If you want to breed guppies in the small tanks in your link you might have more success if you partition off a small area at the end of the tank using craft mesh. The fry will hopefully find their way through the mesh into the safe area before they get eaten.

What do you intend to do with the fry? Very few shops will take them because they are so cheap to get from the wholesaler. If you want to try breeding for a particular colour or pattern, don't forget that the guppy females in the shop will have been kept with males and will be carrying sperm from most of the males in the same tank. It will take up to 6 months of fry every 4 weeks for the females to use up all the stored sperm.


You could try endlers instead. The endlers in shops are guppy-endler hybrids but they seem to take after the endler side of their heritage and don't eat their fry as readily as guppies. They will also do better in a small tank. The gestation period is the same as for guppies, as is the time females store sperm.

My variatus platies, which I've had since November, were active without me even realising. I only had 1 male and 2 females. It was only when I moved them into the larger communal tank and was getting ready to clean out their smaller tank that I found the babies. Currently mother and babies are in one tank, father is in another tank, 3rd female is in the communal tank. I'm waiting to make sure the babies are big enough, and I'm sure the female isn't going to give birth again, before putting them in the communal tank. Daddy fish will always be kept in a separate tank from now on because there's only so many v. platies I need in my tanks.
These are quite hardy & colourful fish, are fine in an unheated tank, and apparently have no problems reproducing on a very regular basis.

If you are thinking about that 25 litre tank, nothing bigger than guppies. Platies, swordtails and mollies are just too big for a tank that size. Endlers are hardier than guppies.

Is your tapwater hard or soft? That info should be somewhere on your water company's website. If it is hard, there are other, rarer, livebearers that would fit in a small tank. Google Heterandria formosa and Neoheterandria elegans. But they really do need hard water to do well.

I plan to keep some babies in my big tank and sell the rest... My LFS took our baby kribs last year. Never heard of or seen endelers before... See if I can sort some

I plan to keep some babies in my big tank and sell the rest... My LFS took our baby kribs last year. Never heard of or seen endelers before... See if I can sort some

From a shop's view, some fish are more desirable than others. Before breeding anything, check with a few shops to see if they will take fry of the species you are thinking of. I doubt any shops would take guppy fry, for example.

The best piece of advice for a fish-in cycle is to take some media from the tank already in the house. For 3 endlers in a 25 litre tank you won't need much, but it is safe to take up to a third of the mature media, monitoring the ammonia and nitrite readings in that tank for a few days to be on the safe side.

Once you have the new tank, fill it with dechlorinated water, and if you don't use warm water wait until it has reached the right temp with the filter turned on to move the water round but no media inside the filter. Then when you are ready, take some mature media from the main tank's filter - don't clean it - and put it into the new tank's filter. As soon as you've done that, put the endlers in the tank as well.
Feed the fish less food than normal for several days as less food = less ammonia, and test the new tank every day for ammonia and nitrite. If you see a reading other than zero for either of them, do a water change. You need to stop both of them reaching 0.25 by doing water changes. When you've tested every day and had zero readings for 7 days in a row, then the tank will be cycled.

The gap left in the main tank's filter will need filling. Either put the media that comes with the new tank into the main tank's filter or get some new media for the main tank.

If the endlers breed while you have readings above zero, they will add the the amount of ammonia being made. Let this batch get eaten if that's what the adults decide to do. You will have more soon with 2 females. Up to 20 fry twice a month. And don't forget that the male endler can impregnate the female fry when they are as young as 3 weeks. They can't have fry that young but they can store sperm from that young. And as soon as the male fry reach puberty, they'll also be able to mate with the adults females and female fry. Then you'll have up to 20 fry from every female every month. Unless you do something, there won't be room for the fish to move. And in my experience, even if a shop will take fry, they won't take them until they reach the size of the ones you've just bought.
I used to have pure endlers which I got from specialist dealers. Because they were pure not hybrids like yours will be, I did sell them quite easily on aquarist classifieds, then once everyone in the area had them I sold them to shops. I didn't get cash for them, only store credit. And they wouldn't take them till they were fully grown.

Best of luck Apache 
You know that you are in good hands with the help and advice provided by the experienced people on this forum.
As Sue said, use some of the media from the existing tank, that will be a great help.
I look forward to hearing about your progress.