Breeding the Fathead minnow (rosy red)

[sandtiger]

So are you saying that these hardy fish usually die with ammonia readings of .25ppm-.5ppm?

Ammonia is toxic to fish at any level for any species. It may not kill all fish outright but generally fishkeepers strive to have a reading of zero and for a good reason. There are also products on the market that neutralize ammonia.

And I am not sure if you have been keeping fish very long or not but anytime you double a tanks stock, it will take some time for the bio-bacteria to grow enough to support that stocking/bioload.

Mmy advice would be not to double the tank's stock or if you do move over another filter or media to compensate for the increased bio-load.

The only difference between the 2 set ups is the temperature. Mine being mid 70's and there's being mid 50's. So I am guessing that is the problem.

That could certainly be the problem, though the ammonia does not help either. How do you acclimate the fish to the temperature change?

 

[hybridtheoryd16]

Thanks for the help here. This has been a problem I have been battleing for 5+ years. I get them and have these problems and then swear fat heads off and go to gold fish and platy's as feeders. But they are 3x more expensive so I allways return to buying fat heads again.

Ok I go to the place with 2 5g minnow buckets with battery operated aireators. I get 1/2lb of minnows in each bucket. I then drive 20 minutes home with them in the back of my suv with the air conditioning of full blast. Once i get them home I dump both buckets in a large tub and put to air stones in it. I then start a air line drip acclimation from the feeder tank. I then take a spare thermometer and place it in the tub with the fat heads. I let them drip until the temps in the tub and tank match. I remove water from the tub when it becomes to full and place it in the feeder tank. It usually takes about an hour to a hour and 15 minutes for the drip to stabilize the temps to match.

This is my standard way off acclimating them. But i have also tried adding ammonia remover to the tub they are acclimating in just in case there was a build up. I have also talked to the people that I by from and they suggested using methylene blue in the tub to help the fish use the oxygen better and becuase of its antifungal properties. Using this method had the same results.

I am at a total loss here.

The only thing I can think of to try is a chiller for the tank. But they are really expensive. I am now looking into a diy plan for a chiller. But all the diy plans I can find do not have any sort of a thermostat to regulate the temp. So that may be bad as well.

 

[Noto]

Great article, Sandtiger! Just a couple of minor taxonomy notes: There are actually four species of Pimephales; besides the fathead and bluntnose, there are also the bullhead minnow, P. vigilax, and the slim minnow, P. tenellus. From what I understand, rosy reds probably have genetic contributions from P. promelas, P. notatus, and P. vigilax.

Hybrid- Baitstore fish are going to be in miserable shape, and die-offs are unavoidable. The survivors are usually tough as nails, though. I bought a half pound each of baitstore fatheads and golden shiners and put them in a cycled but unstocked room temperature 300 gallon tank. They certainly didn't cause an ammonia spike. About 1/3 of each species died over the next 10 days or so, but in the more than a year since then I have lost only two shiners (one to jumping and one to a fungal infection) and no fatheads. The fatheads breed regularly on an 8 hour photoperiod, though the other fish in the tank gobble any hatchlings before I ever see them.

 

[sandtiger]

Great article, Sandtiger! Just a couple of minor taxonomy notes: There are actually four species of Pimephales; besides the fathead and bluntnose, there are also the bullhead minnow, P. vigilax, and the slim minnow, P. tenellus. From what I understand, rosy reds probably have genetic contributions from P. promelas, P. notatus, and P. vigilax.

Thanks for pointing that out. I'm actually aware of the other Pimephales species but the article is over three years old and either I didn't know about them at that time or I simply made a mistake. There are only two members of the genus that live in NY (where I live) so I may have had a brain fart when writing the thing. If I edit it I'll also have to include the issue regarding thiaminase in fatheads.

Hybrid, it sounds like your acclimation process is spot on. I would venture to guess that the problem is with the fish themselves or in how they are cared for at the bait shop. I know fatheads can survive temperatures in the 70's as I've kept them at that temp. myself without any problems. I suggest finding a different source, if there is a wild population near you I would go after them. They should be considerably more hardy.

 

[Noto]

Whoops, didn't see the original post date on there!

 

[hybridtheoryd16]

Well the place i get them from is a breeder/supply house not a bait shop. They supply all the bait shops in the area though so i guess its sort of the same thing.

Thats the reason i allways buy a pound, because thats there minimum. And i go there because they are the cheapest around and supposedly the best place because they breed there own supply.

i have not been able to successfully find a good source for them wild here. I know they are here but all I get is gambusia and common chubs. And the gambusia are to small and the chubs are just right in certain times of the year but in other they are the same size as the fish I am feeding. lol

I also have to be careful with the wild caught stuff because we have horn nose chubs around here pretty comonly and that would be bad for a feeder.

I kind of slacked off on the seining the last few years after contracting a staff infection in my legs. The day after a netting trip. The docs said it was most likely a bacteria in the water that got onto my legs and started the infection. So I guess I need to get back out.

 

[swordtailz]

I will be trying my luck at breeding rosy red minnows.
You all can check out their progress on my live web cam:
http://aquariumvideo.org/interactive-fish-webcam-trap.php

click the "cave" button to see if they have spawned with eggs.

 

[Great Basin Benji]

Question: Do the Rosy Reds actually get as black as the silver phenotypes do during spawning? The males that I've netted in their full spawning colors are almost purple with a definate irridescence. It would be interesting to see such a drastic color change from the Pink to Black. Can the photo period be altered at any time of the year to initiate spawning? Some of the alkanine lakes here in the Great Basin have HUGE established populations of them, but it would be just as fun to breed them as it is to Seine for them.

 

[MultispeciesTamer]

I havnt seen Sandtiger on here in a while so you may not get an answer, from him at least

 

[Gearhead]

I used to get thousands of fry in a backyard pond, untill I put a baby lmb in there. Now all but my koi have been eatin. For a while, i would get buckets of them in a 20 gal tank with 2 sponge filters. They would live for quite a while untill i used them all as feeders. It was kind of neat to have a mix of silver and rosy fry in the same tank. They would lay the eggs on the underside of lilypads, and a week latter there would be giant masses of fry all over the place.