# best fish to breed??



## geckos_are_great (Jun 17, 2010)

ive started breeding yabbies for lizards and they seem to realy enjoy them and i was wondering what type of fresh water fish would be easy to breed for my eel? its getting abit expensise to keep buying him fish all the time and he wont eat the yabbies :\ so i was wondering which type of fish will be the easiest to breed.


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## Dusty62 (Jun 17, 2010)

Go with your live bearers like guppies, mollies or platties they produce lots of babies.


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## geckos_are_great (Jun 17, 2010)

ohk cool thanks dusty


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## geckos_are_great (Jun 17, 2010)

any you can think of that arnt tropical though??

edit: only ones i cant think of that arnt tropical is goldfish:\ but mine havnt bred for the past two years


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## IgotFrogs (Jun 17, 2010)

goldfish are egg breeders and very hard to get to breed your better off buying a cheap little water heater and going with your live breeder tropicals like be4 stated


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## Dusty62 (Jun 17, 2010)

guppies arn't tropical, i know people that use to breed them in 300 ltr tubs in their back yard and they bred like crazy


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## geckos_are_great (Jun 17, 2010)

ohh i googled them and i said they were :| anyway i dont think i could breed them out the back of mine as it snows here sometimes :O


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## geckos_are_great (Jun 17, 2010)

hmm i may have to look at getting some guppies then


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## luke.r.s (Jun 17, 2010)

down in vic in a lot of ponds/lakes their are mozzie fish that are livebearers similar to guppies but dont need warm temps. their a bit smaller than guppies and very dull.


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## geckos_are_great (Jun 17, 2010)

yeah im looking those up at the moment  i dont think i will breed them though seeing as how much of a pest they are. i think i will just catch them.


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## cris (Jun 17, 2010)

Fish like swordtails and platies are very easy to breed and also get much bigger than guppies or mozzy fish. They may require some heating in winter, but here in brisbane they dont need heating at all. That said heating is a good idea regardless of the species as it will make them grow quicker. A cheap heater only costs around $20.

Keeping or using gambusia as food is illegal, though i havnt heard of anyone getting in trouble.


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## geckos_are_great (Jun 17, 2010)

owell mosquito fish are bad pests anyway so i dont think they would mind if i get rid of afew for them 

thanks for the help everyone


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## bkevo (Jun 17, 2010)

mate. get a pair of convict cichlids.. wont be able to stop the babies coming


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## SLACkra (Jun 17, 2010)

> Keeping or using gambusia as food is illegal, though i havnt heard of anyone getting in trouble.



I'd find it hard to believe they'd care at all given the fact that most victorian water ways are infested with them and we're never going to get rid of them (in my opinion). If it is illegal to keep them then just catch wild ones, kill them and freeze them (ice cube trays are good for this). Then whenever you need to feed your eel just throw in a cube of tasty gambusia 

I've got a bucket with 40 or so gambusia in it at the moment. Just went with a friend and netted them out of a dam. They are bloody easy to keep alive. Also if you're catching them out of the yarra ect you're just putting a slight dent into a feral population. Just don't forget that in these colder months their numbers will have decreased significantly so there won't be as many around.

Andrew


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## jinin (Jun 17, 2010)

Cant go wrong with Guppies mate!


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## richoman_3 (Jun 17, 2010)

SLACkra said:


> I'd find it hard to believe they'd care at all given the fact that most victorian water ways are infested with them and we're never going to get rid of them (in my opinion). If it is illegal to keep them then just catch wild ones, kill them and freeze them (ice cube trays are good for this). Then whenever you need to feed your eel just throw in a cube of tasty gambusia
> 
> I've got a bucket with 40 or so gambusia in it at the moment. Just went with a friend and netted them out of a dam. They are bloody easy to keep alive. Also if you're catching them out of the yarra ect you're just putting a slight dent into a feral population. Just don't forget that in these colder months their numbers will have decreased significantly so there won't be as many around.
> 
> Andrew


 
lol when i was a little kid ( 4 - 9 ) i used to breed them 
guppies are the best to breed mate, breed easily. try and get some cobra guppies, my fave


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## Akraziatic (Jun 17, 2010)

Hey mate have you thought about feeding your eel pellets?? I used to keep one and fed him on ppak which is a "homebrand" pellet at petbarn. Very cheap and good staple food. I only feed live feeders on the odd occasion as a treat. Other than that your best to go with your livebearers. A simple tank with marble substrate and a spawning mop would be fine to raise the fry. Even though gold fish can survive in cold water they spawn around spring after a cold winter and the water warms up to around 25 degrees. Ofcourse you can simulate this with a heater. But I'd say swapping him over to pellets.. What type of eel is it? a native? or exotic like a fire eel or tire track??


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## geckos_are_great (Jun 17, 2010)

thanks for the info everyone i think ill go buy some guppies and go catch some gambusia to freeze.

thanks for the help guys


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## Kenshin (Jun 17, 2010)

its really simple get yourself some cichlids ither convicts, red jewel cichlids or texas chichlids they breed like nothing else you will have thousands of bub's u dare say you will get yourself something else predatory to eat the exess fish as well like a bass or perch of some kind


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## geckos_are_great (Jun 17, 2010)

akraziatic hes a short finned eel and kenshin if that happend i could feed them to my black fish


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## richoman_3 (Jun 17, 2010)

i have 2 short finned eels in a tank with some bream


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## beney_boy (Jun 17, 2010)

ive got a queensland long finned. hes a pain to feed as he doesnt like to take pieces of fish, even though the guy i got him form said he would take it. now hes on yabbies and goldfish. costs an arm and a leg to feed seeing as he is 3.5ft.


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## geckos_are_great (Jun 17, 2010)

richoman what do you mean by bream?? do u mean the actual salt water bream or bass


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## Kenshin (Jun 17, 2010)

do you keep a blackfish as in Gadopsis marmoratus?


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## bump73 (Jun 17, 2010)

Saltwater bream can be converted to what is basically fresh water with a pinch of salt. My local aquarium place has bream, flathead, flounder and even a 10cm mud crab all in freshwater tanks with just a bit of salt added.

Ben


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## richoman_3 (Jun 17, 2010)

geckos_are_great said:


> richoman what do you mean by bream?? do u mean the actual salt water bream or bass



i had 10 bream from brackish water i caught - all about 25cm. i slowly over time converted them into freshwater. they were living good for 5 months with 3 eels but i went away for 4 days and when i came back 1 eel and 7 bream were dead from a fungus disease , now ive got 2 eels ( short finned ) and 3 healthy bream, looking on getting some more fish from the local brackish river, ive got 1 flathead gudgeon in there and looking for more , - the tank is 4 foot


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## geckos_are_great (Jun 17, 2010)

cool


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## mrkos (Jun 18, 2010)

what about something like cobia a few months ago while throwing my net i found a huge school of tiny what looked like juvenile cobia in the shallows around a pontoon they where all about 5 cm and looked unreal for a tank


richoman_3 said:


> i had 10 bream from brackish water i caught - all about 25cm. i slowly over time converted them into freshwater. they were living good for 5 months with 3 eels but i went away for 4 days and when i came back 1 eel and 7 bream were dead from a fungus disease , now ive got 2 eels ( short finned ) and 3 healthy bream, looking on getting some more fish from the local brackish river, ive got 1 flathead gudgeon in there and looking for more , - the tank is 4 foot


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## AnimalCollector6 (Jun 18, 2010)

Guppies are breeding machines, besides they don't need that warm-a-water, about 18 degrees will do, even lower is fine! You actually need more females than males because the chicks can die from exhaustion!


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## Amby_Purr (Jun 18, 2010)

what kind of eel? we keep a swamp eel, who doesn't even TOUCH the fish - and our cichlids are breeding regardless of what's in the tank, so he has a few babies to pick off... he will only eat the frozen blocks of ox-heart we give him...


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## richoman_3 (Jun 18, 2010)

mrkos said:


> what about something like cobia a few months ago while throwing my net i found a huge school of tiny what looked like juvenile cobia in the shallows around a pontoon they where all about 5 cm and looked unreal for a tank


 
sounds like common galaxias from that descripton ... i have tried keeping common galaxies ( if thats what you mean ) but didnt gave any success, died straight away


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## geckos_are_great (Jun 20, 2010)

richoman they will have died because they need fresh cold running water other wise very hard t keep alive.i use to keep them with a little het thing in the water to make a current


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