A
Anonymous
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Logistics: How to breed 1000 zebrafish/month.
How much room do you have to work with? I would think you will need many tanks to produce such numbers.
Hard to guess without knowing the average number of fish per spawn and spawning frequency. I've never bred them on purpose. I'm guessing somewhere between 50 and 100 per spawn, perhaps once a month. Meaning you will want at least 10 spawnings per month. Growout is probably around 3-4 months... that would be 10 holding tanks for the 10 pairs/trios, 5-10 spawning tanks. If you combine each week's eggs to a single tank you will need probably 4 hatching tanks and then somewhere to grow the fish out, several large tanks considering you will have around 4000 fish at any one time growing out.
Saving the eggs seems to be the biggest challange with these guys, you'll want them to spawn in shallow water where the eggs will quickly reach the bottom. The bottom should be either a piece of fly screen that is suspended from all sides of the tank. The eggs will fall through the screen and you can easily see them on the bare bottom tank. The screen is also easy to adjust so to give the parents shallower water or not. Otherwise a suspended layer of marbles or pebbles, I've seen some interesting designs made with eggcrate. Marbles are good as they allow the eggs to fall between them away from the parents but unless you can see the bottom it will be hard to know when they have spawned.
I hear many keep two males per female, I've also heard that once paired off these fish tend to become loyal to one another. Perhaps the second male adds some competition...
Sounds like a fun project
Giancarlo
Hard to guess without knowing the average number of fish per spawn and spawning frequency. I've never bred them on purpose. I'm guessing somewhere between 50 and 100 per spawn, perhaps once a month. Meaning you will want at least 10 spawnings per month. Growout is probably around 3-4 months... that would be 10 holding tanks for the 10 pairs/trios, 5-10 spawning tanks. If you combine each week's eggs to a single tank you will need probably 4 hatching tanks and then somewhere to grow the fish out, several large tanks considering you will have around 4000 fish at any one time growing out.
Saving the eggs seems to be the biggest challange with these guys, you'll want them to spawn in shallow water where the eggs will quickly reach the bottom. The bottom should be either a piece of fly screen that is suspended from all sides of the tank. The eggs will fall through the screen and you can easily see them on the bare bottom tank. The screen is also easy to adjust so to give the parents shallower water or not. Otherwise a suspended layer of marbles or pebbles, I've seen some interesting designs made with eggcrate. Marbles are good as they allow the eggs to fall between them away from the parents but unless you can see the bottom it will be hard to know when they have spawned.
I hear many keep two males per female, I've also heard that once paired off these fish tend to become loyal to one another. Perhaps the second male adds some competition...
Sounds like a fun project
Giancarlo
Grow out tanks would be the biggest space needed. You can set up 12-15 fish in a 10 gallon. Carolina Biological suggests having the marble bottom and siphoning the eggs out on a daily basis. The sex ratio should be 1:1 or 2:1 females to males. A female zebra danio can produce 300-500 eggs in a spawn.
You would most likely need say 3-4 ten gallons for breeding and rearing fry. Then some larger tanks or vats for grow out. The amount of grow out space depends on what the salable size for the fish is. A friend of mine way back in high school used kiddie wading pools.
You would most likely need say 3-4 ten gallons for breeding and rearing fry. Then some larger tanks or vats for grow out. The amount of grow out space depends on what the salable size for the fish is. A friend of mine way back in high school used kiddie wading pools.
ranaman":5dn5wuts said:
the best ratio of any scatter spawning small fish should ALWAYS be more males to females, as this ensures maximum fertilization of eggs spawned by the females, and all 'old fish heads' use a minimum of 2 males/female
you should be able to get 1000's of eggs/fry/month out of ten 20 longs, if not less, and should be able to get spawnings on an almost continual basis.
(long tanks are the best to use with danios)
the ideal setup is to place a piece of fiberglass window screen 2/3 of the way up from the tank bottom, parrallel to the bottom glass, limiting the danios to the top 1/3 of the tank (the top 2-3" is the best). this will allow the non-adhesive eggs to drop through the screen before the adults have a chance to turn around and eat them, and will also allow you to leave the eggs in the system, and transfer the adults out, after each 'run' rather easily
i used to give danios away because they're so prolific-there's no reason why one trio shouldn't produce close to a thousand eggs/fry monthly.
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