GBR Laying Eggs

[ksfishguy]

I purchased a male and female GBR a few weeks ago and put them in my community tank. The female is now laying eggs! I have no experience in breeding these fish (or any for that matter). I only have one tank and it is full of fish including angels. Any suggestions or thoughts would be appreciated!

 

[Lonewolfblue]

GBR's are the hardest to raise. The parents will probably eat the eggs unless you removed them to their own tank. Getting them to spawn is simple, but hatching the eggs and raising the fry isn't so easy. You'd first need another tank, loke a 5G or 10G tank, with heater and filter, and preferably glass bottom.

 

[bs6749]

Do you think glass is the best? That is what I had, and mine didn't make it, but I know I probably have something other problem than the substrate. I then switched to pool filter sand and those didn't make it either. But when I see fish that are in breeder tanks, the bottom is bare. Why is this exactly? I put the sand in mine so that they could have a break from the current from the filter and hide in the little nooks and crannies.

 

[Skyrmir]

The tanks are left bare so they're easier to clean. Depending on the fish, you might need to pick out bad eggs yourself or medicate the tank. Substrate tends to soak up some meds and makes it a serious pain to find itty bitty fishies.

With baby fish water quality is a huge issue for survival. Not getting sucked up into a siphon during a water change is the other, so visibility is a must.

 

[bs6749]

Yeah but I believe LWB and myself both opt to NOT do water changes with the fry when they are very young. I believe he lost quite a few of them because of a PWC.

So here is another question: since my GBR's lay eggs quite frequently on plant leaves and I remove the leaves from my main and put them into the grow out tank, how would I remove eggs individually once they turn white? What I try to do is hold the leaf down be placing a small amount of pool filter sand on each end of the leaf to keep it from floating. Then I place a large airstone next to the leaf to try and prevent fungus which ALWAYS shows up despite my efforts with pimafix and maroxy along with H2O2.

 

[Lonewolfblue]

Excellent water conditions is one of the keys, yes. But so is stable parameters. With my next batch, I'm going to soften my water by doing 50% RO and 50% tap. I'm also using Wisteria in the tank to take care of any nitrate increases as well. I do not do water changes as when I did, I would lose over half of the fry, even with less than 10%.

Also, another change is I'm going to a 5G for a fry tank. Still have to get it, bonus time is Wednesday, so I'll splurge and get a 5G setup with small filter and heater. Will be bare bottom, and will try the blue stuff this time for the anti-fungus. I'm also leaving lights off, so the only light they will get is ambient lighting. Will see if this makes any difference.

 

[Skyrmir]

As for picking out the bad eggs, I use a pair of needlenose tweezers. It works well enough on the angel eggs. GBR eggs should be doable as well, just takes a steadier hand. I've had a MUCH better turn out than just using anti-fungal alone. The last batch I would guestimate about 70-80% of the eggs made it to free swimming. without picking out the bad ones by hand, I'm lucky if 50% hatch using anti-fungals alone.

I would guess that in the wild, Angel parents can do a better job than I can as well. Watching my female when I leave the eggs in there, she's able to pick out the bad ones easily, without disturbing the good ones around it. And since she can sit there all day, she catches them early. Doing it myself, I can only take the time once or twice a day to pick out the bad ones.

I've been meaning to try using one of those plastic syringes to try and suck out the bad eggs. With the tweezers the hard part is seperating the eggs because not only do they stick to the leaf, they stick to each other too.

 

[ksfishguy]

Well, I figured out what happens to eggs in a community tank, they become fish food!!!

 

[crazyred]

My procedure with my succesful GBR spawns (2 so far) is to leave the eggs with the parents until they start to 'twitch'. That's when you know what eggs are viable. By this time, the parents have usually taken care of any white eggs that were fungus. Mine seem to always lay their eggs on something removable (sword plant leaf and CO2 diffuser). As soon as the eggs start to move on their own, I submerge a container in my 55 and put the object with the eggs on it in the container. I then submerge it in my 10 gallon grow out tank and watch the hatching. At the moment, I have about 30 fry of varying ages. Some of my fry are big enough to go back in the 55....they are starting to get stripes and they are SO frickin' cute!!! I don't do PWCs on my 10....I have stem plants floating in there to absorb nitrates, and I have a bare bottom. It's working so far.