I have a 9 gallon planted tank with 8 embers. Today after cleaning and re-installing the pump a I noticed a mature baby swimming around! I don't know anything about breeding but I guess nature always finds a way.
Your feeling is right regarding the male to female ratio. I have one female and five males. Females are absolutely feistier than males. They all give chase, but males only occasionally. The female is the boss, for sure. There's a specific male she breeds with the most, and I've seen them breeding, which is him courting her by cozying up to her, usually under her belly, and if she wants him, cool, and if not she chases him away. But generally speaking those two, plus one other male she breeds with almost as often, are always together. The other two I have seen her breed with at least once. She definitely has laid eggs over time, but I have never tried to catch them and hatch them. They are also in a tank with ten chili rasboras and two female betta, so the eggs are a snack for everybody. It's fine, I'm not trying to raise ember tetra fry. What surprises me most is my chili rasboras breed and lay eggs sometimes too, and not only do I only feed once every two days (protein rich food btw), they are not in acidic water. Rasboras breed in acidic water. Tetras in neutral water like what you show in your video. Everybody was breeding more when I was feeding the baby brine shrimp, but it was effecting water quality and lacked nutritional value compared to what I feed them now. I do the cool water changes too, meaning I put in dechlorinated tap water that's cooler in temp than the tank water, just to top off the tank when necessary. What's hilarious is I wasn't trying to encourage breeding at all and never looked up how to breed ember tetras, until today. It's funny to me how I accidentally discovered all of this. Especially the cool water, which was me going by what I know from my turtle tanks, which is to put in cooler water during topping/changing to avoid making the water too warm.
Hey man I just wanted to say how much I enjoy your videos. It really blows my mind you only have as many subscribers as you do. Your editing, your footage, your narration...it's all expertly done. I hope you get the recognition your videos deserve.
Thank you, I'm really glad to hear that. I remember being excited about having 100 subscribers so the numbers are only ever a pleasant surprise to me. I also don't get a lot of riff raff. Just people who care about the topic and find the videos because they went looking for information. It's a different type of viewer and they are the ones I cater to most.
Thank you so much for sharing your experiments! I’ve been wanting more ember tetras but my local fish stores are having a hard time bringing them in with the shipping issues. Now I can try breed the ones I have to make more!
excellent vídeo! You were very accurate about the male female breeding, ratio and the water changes. i got 25 fry with 2 males and 4 females. rocks on the bottom a let them 3 days alone, without watching them directly. I did see them spawning. They make an extrange ritual before spawning. but for you to see this, you have to set an infrared camera and watch them when the temperature get the colder at the end of the day. There is no need to bother then each day, Because the fry stays on the bottom for 2 + days before free swiming. Extracting the eggs stressed them and radically stops any spawning ritual. Thanks for the video
Is this the ratio for most tetra species? 2M/4F? I am wanting to breed Hyphessobrycon Margitae once I get more. (I only have 5 now). They are next to impossible to find in Canada and zero availability in my city. They are by far, my favourite fish and I definitely want to breed them as I want to keep my 90 gallon stocked with them.
I’ve always wanted to breed Ember Tetras. I find them very fascinating fish. Have you ever considered a hands free egg collection system using an air line to suck up the eggs and into a Breeders Box? I want to try that for the Ember Tetra fish. I enjoy you videos, so I subscribed and put notifications on. Thank you for sharing.
I definitely want to attempt this. My ember tetras actually had a few babies successfully hatch in the tank, and there is even a betta in there! They must’ve hid in the plants very well. It was a nice surprise 😊
So you hatch eggs with lights on? I have heard that they need to be in the dark in order to hatch. I have an aquarium with ember tetras that has about 5cm thick layer of moss and süsswassertang all across the bottom plus some anubias towering them. Eggs fall through plants into the darkness in the bottom, there are microorganisms to feed upon and a place to hide. And I have a steady but slow influx of young ones that join the steam when they are around 1/3 of the size of an adult. But I would like to make a bigger batch by catching a spawn, hence the light question.
Hi, im new to your channel and interest in breeding tetras specialy neon and ember, yoyr vid is so informative at easy to undetstand and fun to watch them too, imma continue watch to your channel hope to learn more of your experience just to have base knowledge of breeding methods love your vids inshort 😅
I’m hoping to find an online distributor soon for more ember tetras, the ones I got from liveaquaria were poor quality. They didn’t last that long for me. I changed the substrate of my 10 gallon with black diamond sand, I used supernatural river sand but it was too coarse for my liking. Too much gunk would sit in it, with the finer sand, the filter easily blows detritus and filters it out. I’m hoping now that I’m able to clean waste more efficiently, that the next batch of embers would last longer.
I buy live food starter cultures from carolina biological supply. They can also be found in most planted aquariums and potentially cultured, but I haven't done so myself.
@@MakeMoreFish thanks for the heads up. I'm thinking of trying to breed the ember tetras I have, and also getting some Galaxy Rasbora to breed. I already culture blackworms and daphnia, so I might try my hand at getting a paramecium culture started.
I did not accept my ember tetras to start spawning about 3-4 months after i got them but i did. Figured Id share my experience bc its an odd one. About 3-4 months, maybe 5, after i got my ember tetras, I noticed one of the females to be muchhhh larger than she usually was. I thought that was weird, so i kept a closer eye on them. I forgot about it for a bit and while cleaning one day, i spotted a tiny tiny baby hiding by the bottom of the tank, under a lot of algae (im constantly struggling with algae blooms) I panicked, because i was completely unprepared. I did as much research as i possibly could, rushed to the petstore, and bought one of those mesh boxes for isolating babies and/or other fish in the same tank. I scooped up as many of the babies i could (maybe 4 or 5 at the time, as apposed to the 5 ember tetras i had) and put them in the little mesh box with a big chunk of algae and said to myself "If they live, they live, if they dont, thats okay, but im going ro try my best to do this, even if im going in blind" Miraculously, they all lived. I attempted to feed them tiny tiny crushed up flakes and for a while they didnt, i had no clue how they were growing but i assumed it must have been either the algae or they didnt really need to eat much while they were tiny. Once they became big enough they wouldnt fit into the other ember tetras mouths, i let them into the rest of the tank to see if they would school. They were maybe 2 weeks older from when i found them, and they did fine!! At first, they were a bit scared of the other fish, but very quickly they were welcomed into the school and have been doing great since then. I had another spawn a few months after that and managed to get about 9 babies. Ive never managed to see any eggs, only ever tiny baby fish. So I guess they must be pretty good at hiding, at least in my tank.
For non-aggressive egg scattering fish like [some] tetras the size of the tank where they spawn is almost irrelevant. Cichlids need some more space and Corydoras eat like pigs so a 10g is doable but might take frequent water changes. What matters more is the size of the tank where you will feed the offspring as they grow. You can breed the species you mentioned in a 10g just fine. I recommend 20-40+ gallons for raising the fry.
any idea about aggression among ember tetras? I have one or two that are very intent on chasing one other particular fish... is that breeding behaviour?
Not that I've ever observed. The opposite actually. This isn't limited to cyclops, but I've looked at developing eggs under a microscope and found small invertebrates and ciliates feeding on the starts of fungal growth on the outside of the egg. Seems helpful to me.
@@MakeMoreFish well this is great then. I have a monthish old shrimp tank that's completely infested by detritus worms and cyclopses. I want to try breeding my embers in there. It has a lot of plants that the fry could hide in so hoping I can get grow a larger shoal of embers instead of buying one as money is tight and I don't super want to do a dedicated breeding setup.
Thanks for sharing! The paramecium that you used is still cultured as in the video from previous year (ruclips.net/video/hJitmMCiHdE/видео.html) or you improved the method somehow?
So you’re saying my group of 14 males and 1 female is perfect, right? 😂 No idea how I ended up with that. They’re about 2 years old and I’ve lost a couple, but only ever had one female from my original starter batch of 20.
@@MakeMoreFish If you don't mind me asking, how long do you reckon it will take from the time of spawning to having fry back with the parents? And would you say it's fine to breed and raise the fry in a planted 5 gallon if the tank is cleaned regularly?
@@caelanharamis5660 My guess is about 3 months. I could add mine back to the adult group and they wouldn't be eaten or anything, they would just have a hard time competing for food with larger, faster fish. 5 gallon would be absolutely fine for raising some fry, especially planted. They'll love it.
@@MakeMoreFish That's great to hear. Would you believe it's possible to raise them without BBS? I could do something like microworms in replacement but BBS is just a bit of a stretch for me.
It is great that you waited 2 or so years before attempting to breed. Time is a good way to naturally widdle down your group to where you got only robust fish left, breeding young studs that end up dying early due to underlying internal issues would mean that the new generation is far more likely to inherit those traits.
As far as keeping them, they seem a very lazy boring tetra species. Mine just seem to hide and rest on the plants and then when fed they get active and then they go back to being boring. School of 5 - issue?
I have a 9 gallon planted tank with 8 embers. Today after cleaning and re-installing the pump a I noticed a mature baby swimming around! I don't know anything about breeding but I guess nature always finds a way.
Your feeling is right regarding the male to female ratio. I have one female and five males. Females are absolutely feistier than males. They all give chase, but males only occasionally. The female is the boss, for sure. There's a specific male she breeds with the most, and I've seen them breeding, which is him courting her by cozying up to her, usually under her belly, and if she wants him, cool, and if not she chases him away. But generally speaking those two, plus one other male she breeds with almost as often, are always together. The other two I have seen her breed with at least once. She definitely has laid eggs over time, but I have never tried to catch them and hatch them. They are also in a tank with ten chili rasboras and two female betta, so the eggs are a snack for everybody. It's fine, I'm not trying to raise ember tetra fry.
What surprises me most is my chili rasboras breed and lay eggs sometimes too, and not only do I only feed once every two days (protein rich food btw), they are not in acidic water. Rasboras breed in acidic water. Tetras in neutral water like what you show in your video. Everybody was breeding more when I was feeding the baby brine shrimp, but it was effecting water quality and lacked nutritional value compared to what I feed them now. I do the cool water changes too, meaning I put in dechlorinated tap water that's cooler in temp than the tank water, just to top off the tank when necessary.
What's hilarious is I wasn't trying to encourage breeding at all and never looked up how to breed ember tetras, until today. It's funny to me how I accidentally discovered all of this. Especially the cool water, which was me going by what I know from my turtle tanks, which is to put in cooler water during topping/changing to avoid making the water too warm.
Hey man I just wanted to say how much I enjoy your videos. It really blows my mind you only have as many subscribers as you do. Your editing, your footage, your narration...it's all expertly done. I hope you get the recognition your videos deserve.
Thank you, I'm really glad to hear that. I remember being excited about having 100 subscribers so the numbers are only ever a pleasant surprise to me. I also don't get a lot of riff raff. Just people who care about the topic and find the videos because they went looking for information. It's a different type of viewer and they are the ones I cater to most.
Thank you so much for sharing your experiments! I’ve been wanting more ember tetras but my local fish stores are having a hard time bringing them in with the shipping issues. Now I can try breed the ones I have to make more!
Your channel is so good! One of the most interesting fishtuber channels ive found 😀
excellent vídeo! You were very accurate about the male female breeding, ratio and the water changes. i got 25 fry with 2 males and 4 females. rocks on the bottom a let them 3 days alone, without watching them directly. I did see them spawning. They make an extrange ritual before spawning. but for you to see this, you have to set an infrared camera and watch them when the temperature get the colder at the end of the day. There is no need to bother then each day, Because the fry stays on the bottom for 2 + days before free swiming. Extracting the eggs stressed them and radically stops any spawning ritual. Thanks for the video
I read somewhere that males coat the female in milt, is that how it happens? Does the exchange happen that long before the female actually lays eggs?
@@MakeMoreFish exactly
Is this the ratio for most tetra species? 2M/4F? I am wanting to breed Hyphessobrycon Margitae once I get more. (I only have 5 now). They are next to impossible to find in Canada and zero availability in my city. They are by far, my favourite fish and I definitely want to breed them as I want to keep my 90 gallon stocked with them.
I’ve always wanted to breed Ember Tetras. I find them very fascinating fish. Have you ever considered a hands free egg collection system using an air line to suck up the eggs and into a Breeders Box? I want to try that for the Ember Tetra fish. I enjoy you videos, so I subscribed and put notifications on. Thank you for sharing.
I've thought about using egg collectors but my goal nowadays is not to produce large numbers of one species. The old fashioned way works for me.
What a great and thorough video. I have a small school of seven and wondering if I could breed them. They're a great little fish!
Your videos inspire me so much. Love that raft tank and how you herd the adults to the other side 👏
Here from the shout out from @AquariumCoop. Great videos!
Awesome video! I’m most shocked about how slow they grow! You did a great job explaining as always
THEIR TINY BODIES AND BLACK EYES
Reminds me in parts of my breeding Harlequin Rasboras. Very informative!
I definitely want to attempt this. My ember tetras actually had a few babies successfully hatch in the tank, and there is even a betta in there! They must’ve hid in the plants very well. It was a nice surprise 😊
Yes, very sneaky in my observation, they tend to find cover and stay stationary until they grow enough to evade hungry bettas.
Great video I learned alot breeding ember tetras and feeding the fry 🙏 thank you.
Great video man, glad I found your channel.
I love these semi-stills, so cute!
Really well done video! Thank you!
So you hatch eggs with lights on? I have heard that they need to be in the dark in order to hatch.
I have an aquarium with ember tetras that has about 5cm thick layer of moss and süsswassertang all across the bottom plus some anubias towering them. Eggs fall through plants into the darkness in the bottom, there are microorganisms to feed upon and a place to hide. And I have a steady but slow influx of young ones that join the steam when they are around 1/3 of the size of an adult. But I would like to make a bigger batch by catching a spawn, hence the light question.
Hi, im new to your channel and interest in breeding tetras specialy neon and ember, yoyr vid is so informative at easy to undetstand and fun to watch them too, imma continue watch to your channel hope to learn more of your experience just to have base knowledge of breeding methods love your vids inshort 😅
Very informative.
How long after you placed the bowl with moss in the tank did you get eggs in the bowl? Great video, thank you!
Pretty much immediately. Within the next 24 hours.
Thank you! Great video and info!
Very cool video!! Thanks for sharing
Very cool! What size tank do you keep the adults in?
They've spent most of their time in a 10 gallon
This was so interesting thanks!
Thanks for your video. You are the best !
I actually saw mine spawn. They kinda hugged and twisted around in a swirling motion for a few seconds.
I’m hoping to find an online distributor soon for more ember tetras, the ones I got from liveaquaria were poor quality. They didn’t last that long for me.
I changed the substrate of my 10 gallon with black diamond sand, I used supernatural river sand but it was too coarse for my liking. Too much gunk would sit in it, with the finer sand, the filter easily blows detritus and filters it out. I’m hoping now that I’m able to clean waste more efficiently, that the next batch of embers would last longer.
I've been having great luck with the wet spot recently
i love your video keep it up
Thanks for sharing!
Great video. Where did you get the paramecium or how did you culture them?
I buy live food starter cultures from carolina biological supply. They can also be found in most planted aquariums and potentially cultured, but I haven't done so myself.
@@MakeMoreFish thanks for the heads up. I'm thinking of trying to breed the ember tetras I have, and also getting some Galaxy Rasbora to breed. I already culture blackworms and daphnia, so I might try my hand at getting a paramecium culture started.
surprising. my ember tetra mama is protecting her eggs. there are other tetras and other fishes so it's tough for her.
You should also try breeding neon tetras
I shall
I did not accept my ember tetras to start spawning about 3-4 months after i got them but i did. Figured Id share my experience bc its an odd one.
About 3-4 months, maybe 5, after i got my ember tetras, I noticed one of the females to be muchhhh larger than she usually was. I thought that was weird, so i kept a closer eye on them. I forgot about it for a bit and while cleaning one day, i spotted a tiny tiny baby hiding by the bottom of the tank, under a lot of algae (im constantly struggling with algae blooms) I panicked, because i was completely unprepared. I did as much research as i possibly could, rushed to the petstore, and bought one of those mesh boxes for isolating babies and/or other fish in the same tank. I scooped up as many of the babies i could (maybe 4 or 5 at the time, as apposed to the 5 ember tetras i had) and put them in the little mesh box with a big chunk of algae and said to myself "If they live, they live, if they dont, thats okay, but im going ro try my best to do this, even if im going in blind" Miraculously, they all lived. I attempted to feed them tiny tiny crushed up flakes and for a while they didnt, i had no clue how they were growing but i assumed it must have been either the algae or they didnt really need to eat much while they were tiny. Once they became big enough they wouldnt fit into the other ember tetras mouths, i let them into the rest of the tank to see if they would school. They were maybe 2 weeks older from when i found them, and they did fine!! At first, they were a bit scared of the other fish, but very quickly they were welcomed into the school and have been doing great since then. I had another spawn a few months after that and managed to get about 9 babies.
Ive never managed to see any eggs, only ever tiny baby fish. So I guess they must be pretty good at hiding, at least in my tank.
What tank size do you suggest for breeding cories, dwarf cichlids and tetra species? Is 10 gallon enough?
For non-aggressive egg scattering fish like [some] tetras the size of the tank where they spawn is almost irrelevant. Cichlids need some more space and Corydoras eat like pigs so a 10g is doable but might take frequent water changes. What matters more is the size of the tank where you will feed the offspring as they grow. You can breed the species you mentioned in a 10g just fine. I recommend 20-40+ gallons for raising the fry.
any idea about aggression among ember tetras? I have one or two that are very intent on chasing one other particular fish... is that breeding behaviour?
Could be, but tetras in general can be a little fiesty.
Thx a lot!! How you get paramecium?
You can order starter cultures or try to isolate and culture what naturally occurs in aquariums, particularly planted.
will the adults eat the paramecium or are those too small?
Too small to be worth an adult's time
I notice a cyclops at 6:51 with the tiny fry. Did you have any issues with cyclops eating your eggs or fry?
Not that I've ever observed. The opposite actually. This isn't limited to cyclops, but I've looked at developing eggs under a microscope and found small invertebrates and ciliates feeding on the starts of fungal growth on the outside of the egg. Seems helpful to me.
@@MakeMoreFish well this is great then. I have a monthish old shrimp tank that's completely infested by detritus worms and cyclopses. I want to try breeding my embers in there. It has a lot of plants that the fry could hide in so hoping I can get grow a larger shoal of embers instead of buying one as money is tight and I don't super want to do a dedicated breeding setup.
If I have a mystery snail- do you
Think they(eggs) will get munched up??
It's certainly a risk with any snails
@@MakeMoreFish that does make me a little sad. Hopefully some will survive
What camera did you use?
I think this was mostly a phone camera. Google pixel
Do x ray tetra’s breed simmilarly?
I don't have personal experience with x-ray tetras, sorry.
Hi, can the fish breed in higher PH level?
Mine gets up there sometimes but if you mean high high pH, over 8, I couldn't say from experience.
Thanks for sharing! The paramecium that you used is still cultured as in the video from previous year (ruclips.net/video/hJitmMCiHdE/видео.html) or you improved the method somehow?
Pretty much the same method just in a larger container
Do you use RO water to breed Ember Tetras?
I tried it but it didn't seem to make much difference. Tap water worked fine
@@MakeMoreFishwhats the TDS of tap water
@@SaadKhan006 it ranges for me between 50 and 200 throughout the year. Probably somewhere in the middle at this time.
@@MakeMoreFish what temperature you feel is good for them, and what should be the ph
6:48 🥺
Love the vid, can you please try to breed kuhli loaches 🤷♂️🐟😁
So you’re saying my group of 14 males and 1 female is perfect, right? 😂
No idea how I ended up with that. They’re about 2 years old and I’ve lost a couple, but only ever had one female from my original starter batch of 20.
Yep, nailed it!
@@MakeMoreFish If you don't mind me asking, how long do you reckon it will take from the time of spawning to having fry back with the parents? And would you say it's fine to breed and raise the fry in a planted 5 gallon if the tank is cleaned regularly?
@@caelanharamis5660 My guess is about 3 months. I could add mine back to the adult group and they wouldn't be eaten or anything, they would just have a hard time competing for food with larger, faster fish. 5 gallon would be absolutely fine for raising some fry, especially planted. They'll love it.
@@MakeMoreFish That's great to hear. Would you believe it's possible to raise them without BBS? I could do something like microworms in replacement but BBS is just a bit of a stretch for me.
It is great that you waited 2 or so years before attempting to breed. Time is a good way to naturally widdle down your group to where you got only robust fish left, breeding young studs that end up dying early due to underlying internal issues would mean that the new generation is far more likely to inherit those traits.
As far as keeping them, they seem a very lazy boring tetra species. Mine just seem to hide and rest on the plants and then when fed they get active and then they go back to being boring. School of 5 - issue?
Sounds normal to me, for that species. They're usually pretty calm.