Wayne487
Aquarium Advice Activist
Will they breed together? I have a female leopard and she's definitely carrying eggs but the only males I have are zebra, will they interbreed?
Yes, they can breed with each other. Fry are said to be attractive but likely not fertile themselves, if you get any eggs hatching and fry surviving. They are egg scatterers that eat both their eggs and fry. A thick moss bed or layer of marbles is good, makes it harder for them to find the eggs once they are laid, and floating plants or moss are good hiding places for fry.
If you really want fry, you will likely get more in a separate tank, so you can remove the parents after they spawn. A big water change early in the morning with water ten degrees cooler can help to stimulate spawning.
Feeding live foods for a few weeks beforehand helps condition them to breed. Frozen is ok too, bloodworm, daphnia, brine shrimp, etc.
No, when they are in the wild, they spawn after the rains.. when the water is much fresher and can be a lot cooler. You are not changing all the water, only about 40%, and it won't shock them. They are cool water fish, not true tropical fish.
You can start feeding bloodworms now. If you miss this spawn, there will be another, they tend to keep it up once they start, and now he's mated that male will not be interested in other females, if there are any. Females are not faithful, but the males tend to be.
Ah, sorry, I misunderstood. If he has only this female though, he will probably breed with her. Leopards are quite pretty with the long fins, for sure. You won't get all long fins, you'll get a percentage, even if both parents have long fins, some fry will be short fins, though they carry the gene for long fins.
Danios that are full grown are not too hard to sex. Females are larger, rounder in the belly, generally fuller looking, even if not full of eggs. Males are much more slender, torpedo shape, no round belly. Colour does not vary much, if at all, between sexes.
If they all look the same, you may only have one sex. It happens, the younger ones are harder to sort out, though even half grown, if you see a bunch of them, the boys are always more slender looking and have a straighter underline than the girls do.
Are you seeing issues that might suggest dead spots ? Best way to handle them is add a small internal pump, I like Koralia nano pumps myself. Use them to give my fan shrimp a good current to feed in. Can aim them in any direction, bounce the flow off a tank side and down, whatever you like. Food colour probably would not hurt but stirring up the substrate a bit would do the same basic thing. Best breeding situation for them is a longer, shallower tank, with either a good mass of mosses or a layer of marbles on the bottom. Stops them eating many of the eggs, gives fry a place to hide when first hatched. But they can breed almost anywhere. Survival of fry is much higher if they are not with the parents until they get big enough not to be snacks.
Maybe wait and see a bit. Eggs hatch quite soon, a day or two later I believe. I have yet to see any fry, I don't try to save them if there are any, but I have seen them spawning on the tank bottom, so I know they lay eggs now and then at least. Circulation is not an issue thanks to the pump for the shrimp. Wish you luck !
You could also just add an airstone to any dead spots, it will help turn them over.