Question about breeding White Clouds

[j250nyahweh]

We just moved our white clouds from a 20 gallon tank to a 60 gallon about a week ago. Last night we just got done feeding them some blood worms (one of the foods that supposedly prompts breeding) and the two males started displaying their fins. We've had them for over a year and this is the first time we've witnessed this behavior. (Tried to snap some pictures, it's pretty freakin' cool, but they got camera shy...I wouldn't want anyone takin pictures of me doin my 'happy dance' either tho)
:blonde: :partydance:

We have 2 males and 3 females and I'm hoping that they spawn. We set up a 2.5 gallon tank that we are going to get some java moss for to transfer the eggs/fry into but wanted any advise from anyone who has breed white cloud mountain minnows (or just any advise on breeding in general as this would be our first foray into this venture)

Thanks!

[KingFisher]

I have a 20g with white clouds in it. They are egg scatterers but I never see the eggs, I just notice a few new babies in there once in a while. The babies seem to do fine on crushed flake or crushed pellets, along with whatever else they find to eat in the tank.

[Scrup]

They will eat their young so keeping enough cover for the babies is the best bet. Java moss would be a pretty good cover IMO. Floating plants with dangling roots such as larger duckweed or water lettuce works great too, but you need pretty good lighting for that.

[KingFisher]

They will eat their young so keeping enough cover for the babies is the best bet. Java moss would be a pretty good cover IMO. Floating plants with dangling roots such as larger duckweed or water lettuce works great too, but you need pretty good lighting for that.

Actually, they do not eat their young but there is a fair amount of sibling canibalism that occurs, resulting in pretty much the same thing, out of every batch you can probably expect 3-5 to make it to adulthood. This is actually good unless you want to end up with a million of them.

[j250nyahweh]

One of the things that we liked about breeding White Clouds is that they don't eat their young. Interesting that they youngers will eat each other tho... takes sibling rivalry to a whole new level...

So should we isolate the male and females to their own smaller tank or can we let them do their business in the big tank and just move the eggs over (provided we can find the eggs)? I read that colder water is better for breeding, any ideas what temp?

[Scrup]

Hah, well I knew something eating them.

[toddnbecka]

I had a group in a 10 gallon with a load of java moss for months. Dozens of fry would appear, swim around for a few days, then disappear over a day or two. Eventually two (from different spawns) managed to survive and grow out.
Then I emptied the tank and siphoned some of the water into a 5 gallon bucket which I didn't bother to dump at the time, and some fry appeared in the bucket about a week later. There were 7 of them of slightly varying sizes/ages, and they grew out just fine in the bucket for several months with a little duckweed and some ramshorn snails. No filter, or even partial water changes, once daily feedings of powdered flakes. They were eventually moved into a 40 breeder with plenty of filtration and packed with Najas. Haven't seen any fry in there yet...

[Jacko]

I never had a problem with the parents eating the young... Though I wish I had, started with 30 and by the time I got tired of them there were over 200 in varying life stages. I want to say it was over about a years time.
My local club also had a ”white cloud race” this summer, essentially fill a 5 gallon bucket, add 12 adults and whoever had the most at the end of summer won, most of them doubled or tripled the number with simple java moss, hornwort or floaters for fry cover.

I didnt feed any different for the fry, just flake and pellets for the most part. I just wish I could have the same success with the vietnamese that replaced them lol