Sumatran barb spawning: main stages, aquarium preparation. Jig for fry

2024 Author: Priscilla Miln | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-01-07 12:45

The Sumatran barb is a very beautiful, agile and showy fish. For keeping in a home aquarium, it is just perfect. Barbs are schooling fish and, unfortunately, quite aggressive. They are usually kept in aquariums without neighbors and in large enough quantities. Of course, if you wish, you can try and breed these beautiful fish at home. Spawning of the Sumatran ordinary or red barb should, of course, take place in a separate container. At the same time, the aquarist should select manufacturers as carefully as possible.

Spawning: preparation

Sumatran barbs live in the aquariums of many lovers of underwater fauna. However, they, of course, do not always show a desire for reproduction. In order for barbs to start spawning, they need to create suitable conditions. First, the fish should be fed as varied as possible. In particular, it is important to give barbs plenty of protein food.

Secondly, for the fish you will need to purchase a separate spawning aquarium. The inside of such a container should be thoroughly disinfected. The volume of spawningshould be less than 10 liters. The best thing, according to experienced aquarists, is to acquire a capacity of 20 liters for laying caviar with barbs.

Soil on the bottom of such an aquarium does not need to be laid. Instead, a special synthetic fiber and separator mesh should be placed in the spawning tank. Instead of artificial material, Java moss can be placed in large quantities in the aquarium. Further, the spawning should be equipped with a filter, for example, an airlift. Be sure to install in such an aquarium, of course, and a compressor. The water in the spawning area must be saturated with oxygen.

Conditions

Spawning of the Sumatran barb, therefore, is possible only if there is good feeding. Also, the fish need to create special conditions similar to those under which they lay eggs in the wild. The water temperature in the spawning area should not fall below 25-27 ° C. At the same time, the level of hardness in the aquarium should be tried to be reduced to 8 dH. Sumatran barbs spawn in the wild during the rainy season. The water in the reservoirs during this period becomes soft precisely because of the large amount of precipitation that replenished them. Changes in environmental parameters serve as a signal for the barbs to start spawning.

Water for spawning these fish at home must be prepared, therefore, in a special way. 3-4 days before spawning, pour water from the tap (2/3) and distilled (1/3) into the spawning ground. The result is a soft environment in which the fish will definitely begin to spawn. Experienced aquarists advise, among other things,add a little s alt to the water in the spawning tank. It is believed that this improves the fertility of eggs. You need to add s alt to the aquarium quite a bit - 1 tsp. for 10 l.

You don't need to pour too much water into the spawning tank. A level of 20-25 cm will be enough. Blow water with a compressor before spawning barbs should be at least 3 days.

What you need to know

Feeding barbs before spawning should therefore be animal, protein-rich food. However, you need to make sure that the water in the aquarium is not too warm. Otherwise, the fish may get fat. This will eventually lead to the fact that they will not spawn at all. Of course, for the same reason, you can not keep fish on a protein diet for too long. In a normal period, the maintenance of Sumatran barbs in an aquarium involves the use of a sufficiently large amount of plant food.

When spawning occurs

Before spawning different types of fish, aquarists often seat males and females for a while. This can be a good incentive for spawning. Of course, Sumatran babuses can also be seated. However, according to experienced aquarists, this is not necessary. With suitable water parameters and good feeding, these fish will most likely not refuse to spawn even without jigging.

Of course, barbs will spawn in spawning grounds only if they have already reached sexual age. These fish are usually ready for breeding at the age of 5-9 months.

Which manufacturers to choose

Sumatran red andstriped - schooling fish. However, group spawning at home is usually ineffective for them. Therefore, for breeding, the owner of the aquarium will have to choose the two most he althy and beautiful producers - a male and a female. It is believed that rather nimble, but not too aggressive medium-sized barbs are suitable for spawning.

You can, of course, try to breed these fish in a group way. In this case, the spawning pool should end up with 50% females and 50% males.

Of course, weakened Sumatran barbs, sick, too small, with developmental defects should not be allowed to spawn. It will be impossible to get high-quality caviar from such fish. In addition, fry from such producers will later hatch sick and unviable.

Helpful advice

If the spawning of the Sumatran barbs will be not in groups, but in pairs, special attention should be paid to the choice of the female. In this case, experienced aquarists advise only a “fluid” individual to take for breeding. In such females, when pressing on the abdomen, small droplets of caviar stand out.

The selected male barbs should have enlarged testicles and testicles. With a little pressure on them, these fish also secrete milk.

How spawning happens: the main stages

To get caviar of Sumatran barbs, the water in the spawning ground must be heated in the evening. Further, the fish themselves are launched into the aquarium prepared in this way (after adaptation). There is no need to feed the producers. Placein the apartment, the spawning should be done in such a way that in the morning the sun's rays get inside it.

Spawning at barbs usually begins in the morning. Males at this time actively pursue females. Further, in the thickets of moss, the fish, closely clinging to each other, lay their eggs. Each pair leaves behind 6-8 eggs. The laying of caviar in Sumatran barbs usually lasts 2-3 hours. After this time, the fish should be removed from the spawning grounds in a separate aquarium. In total, a small group of barbs usually lays several hundred eggs in the spawning ground.

Important

After spawning, the female Sumatran barb should definitely squeeze out the remnants of caviar. To do this, you need to stroke the fish towards the anus, lightly holding it with two fingers. If such a procedure is neglected, the female may subsequently develop a cyst, making her unable to reproduce.

Of course, it is sharply impossible to transplant barbs-producers from a spawning ground into a common aquarium. Fish first need to be adapted to other environmental parameters in a standard way. The temperature in the general aquarium is usually lower than in the spawning area.

What to do with caviar?

After the fish are transplanted, the water in the spawning area should be partially replaced with fresher water. At the same time, its level should be lowered by about 10 cm. Also, a little methylene blue should be added to the aquarium. Next, the spawning should be slightly shaded. It is imperative to remove Sumatran barbs from the jig after laying. Otherwise, they subsequentlythey will definitely try to eat caviar or fry born into the world.

12 hours after spawning, you can remove the net from the aquarium, after shaking off the stuck eggs from it.

Caviar outlet

Barbs are quite prolific fish. The output of fry from their caviar, depending on the parameters of the water and the quality of the producers, can reach 50-90%. Unfertilized fish "eggs" from the spawning aquarium in any case will need to be removed. Such caviar differs from fertilized in white. After adding methylene blue to the water, it will become clearly visible.

It is imperative to remove unfertilized eggs from the spawning ground, at least partially. Otherwise, fungus will develop on it. And this, in turn, can lead to infection of fertilized eggs and the death of fry.

Hatching

Fry of the Sumatran barb begin to be born the very next day after spawning. In the future, for 3-5 days (depending on the water temperature), they hang on plants and aquarium glasses in the form of small transparent sucker larvae. The spawning ground at this moment turns into a jig for the fry of the Sumtaran babus. During this period, the larvae do not eat anything yet. They get their nutrients from the yolk sac.

After 3-5 days, barb fry begin to swim and feed. Artemia is considered the best food for them at this moment. You can also feed the fry with special dry food and egg yolk. The young growth acquires the color characteristic of Sumatran barbs 2 weeks afterhatching.

How to tell a male from a female

For a beginner in the hobby, all regular and red Sumatran barbs look alike. And indeed, there are no obvious sexual differences, as, for example, in the same guppies, these fish do not. But still, it will not be too difficult to distinguish a Sumatran male from a female. Even a beginner can easily cope with this task. Photos of Sumatran barbs male and female can be seen below.

At striped barbs:

• nose, snout, edges of the caudal and upper fins are red;
• slender and elongated body.

Female:

• paler scales;
• round body.

In addition, striped barb girls are usually much larger than boys. Before spawning, the abdomen of females becomes rounded. You can also distinguish male barbs from females by behavior. These fish are much more aggressive.

Roughly the same features can be used to distinguish between males and females of red Sumatran barbs. The body shape of the males will be more graceful and longer, the coloring will be brighter, and the sizes will be smaller.

Stimulation in community tank

The maintenance of Sumatran barbs is a very interesting thing. But those aquarists who decide to start breeding such fish, among other things, should start taking care of the he alth of females. So that the producers do not form a cyst, the water temperature in the general aquarium must be raised from time to time to28 °C. Such conditions should be created in a container with fish for about 2 days. This stimulates the spawning of Sumatran barbs. The caviar of the fish will, of course, be eaten in the future. But females who brush it aside will not develop a cyst.

Spawning of Sumatran barbs in the general aquarium should be stimulated approximately 2-3 times a year. Water changes at this time should be done a little more than usual.