# Other Aquarium Forums > Freshwater Fauna > Characins >  Has anyone bred Congo Tetras?

## Diapterondave

I saw my group of Congo teras breeding this morning. It was 10:30 in an outside tank in my patio which receives some shaded sunlight. I have been feeding them heavily on black worms , mosquito larvae, bloodworms, Moina and grindles. The male would drive the female to the side of the overflow from my wet/dry filter. This was near the waters surface , about 3"-4" from the surface. The pair would lay side by side and quiver as a few eggs were dropped. About 5-8 eggs were laid at a time. They went at it for about 90 minutes. Of course the other fish in the tank enjoyed the addeded treat. Given their interest in breeding i wanted to try to breed them. Anyone out there have any advice? I have two males and 4 females. I was going to try a screen at the bottom as they seemed to drop them freely. The water psarameters were as follows pH 5.5, 0 DH, less then 40 us/cm. Temperature was 79 f.

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## stormhawk

More info here:

http://mike-edwardes.members.beeb.net/Pinterruptus.html

Never kept them before so I can't help out much except for Googling out information.

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## Scott_sg

Hmmm good luck,
Actually they are still a difficult fish to breed. The problem is they will spawn easy in a community tank say but then as soon as something changes they will stop.
About ten years ago i had limited success with them, but it took a lot of patience. Mine spawned in a community tank so my first thought was to set up a screen in a 3 foot tank i had at the time. But that was useless. 
So what i did was a mixture of experiment, guess work and luck. 
Firstly i seperated the sexes for a couple of weeks and kept them happy and very well fed. During this time i also set up a 3' tank with lots of moss on the bottom with a very very fine layer of old peat on the bottom. The top of the tank was about half covered with water Hyacinth (noxious weed in most places but it was in the river near by) but the roots are very nice for fish. I even had an old bit of drift wood in there. 
Anyway i introduced 3 pairs into the tank in the afternoon and the next morning there was eggs scattered everywhere. So it worked in that sense, but raising the fry was not easy at all. The fry were about the size of glow light tetra fry or smaller from memory but much slower growing and i had trouble raising them. 
I never saw them actually spawn, but still they are a spectacular fish. The worst part is they actually looked very nice in the spawning tank. So maybe i should of just left them setup permanently like that.

I hope that helps or gives some ideas, the problem is that what works for one person will not always work for others. I just tried to make it as "jungly" as possible. 

Scott.

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## stormhawk

Scott,

If I recall correctly the congos are egg-scatterers but while they happen to produce loads of eggs, they are egg-eaters too. So I suppose it won't be a good idea to keep them in the same tank with the fry.

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## Diapterondave

Hi all,

Here is the breeding tank I have setup for them. The water is pur rain water hat has sat for over two weeks and has been allowed to steep in peatmoss and oak leaves for over two weeks. This water is very sterile, pH 5.5 and less then 40 us/cm. I have several mops for them. I placed one male and two females in the tank. I will report more and add pics as the project progresses. Note the egg crate I placed over the bottom to guard the eggs from the hungry parents.

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## Scott_sg

Hi there,

Yes they will go after the eggs, although they did not seem as bad as some species. The problem was really that i had a lot of trouble raising the fry. 

But I was thinking more "au naturel" just leaving it as a nice little ecosystem. Since the fry probably had as much chance in with the parents as they did with me at the time.

Also the thing is a lot of the tetra's can look really surprising when they have a species tank, subdued or spot lighting and peat water. Since alot of them tend to look very washed out in a normal community tank. 

But then again i think tetra's were really at there most popular in 60's and 70's from looking through old TFH magazines. There are just so many species of fish available today that i think it would be hard to find anyone who would bother setting up a species tank for them. I used to breed a lot of them and i would always be asked.. "Why bother?" since they are normally very cheap. 

Although in Australia you could pay as much for Congo tetra's as for young Discus at the time. 

The tank looks good for spawning them, I forgot to mention i did use about 50% rain water to get the water as soft as was possible, but i was not living in a big city at the time. Just be careful about getting fish stuck in the sides of that stuff. I always seemed to have problems with that, poor design on my part i guess. 

In the end for spawning traps I gave up and used a big piece of the cloth/plastic flyscreen made for doors and windows (not the metal type). I would just lay that over the tank and press it in to fit. Much the same as hanging a big net in the tank.

You will also need lots of green water. rotifers etc. I was once told by an old guy that the problem I had was underfeeding them, and that the fry water should really be a pea soup consistency for the first couple of weeks. And the lights left on, I suppose that encourages them to feed and also stops the tank crashing at night when photosynthesis reverses. The problem with doing it this way though is it is really easy to mess it up and kill everything.

But for the fry that is just what i was told, so it might give you some ideas, i ended up with about 25 or so raised to maturity, but if you do it right you should be able to get hundreds. Which would not be bad pocket money... Although you would need alot of tank space.

Oh the fry will look like little glass splinters which you will only see when they are on the glass, and from memory maybe half to a third the size of betta fry. So that gives you some idea of what you are dealing with.

And if you ever try Bleeding heart's _Hyphessobrycon erythrostigma_ let me know. I never even came close to getting them to breed.. 

best of luck,
Scott

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## Diapterondave

Well here is my status. As of a few hours ago. Beginning at aprox 9 am my Congos began to spawn. The male would dance in front of the female dancing and darting around her in an in satiable attempt to drive her to the spawning mops. I used 4 floating Killie mops for them to deposit their spawn on. The males would entice rather drive! The female into the upper parts of the mops. There they would quiver and spread eggs down as they quiver together side by side. Very cool. The water was so dark I couldnt get any good shots and I dare not test the fates to mess with anything as far as lighting right now lol The eggs were very large the size of big Killie eggs like the Killie fish the Blue Gularus. I put in 5-ppm acriflavine to the tank and added a few drop of Methlynblue. In 7 days well see what happens. I will hope to get some shots of the eggs as they develop.

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## Diapterondave

Let me add they showed no interest the first day. I think they needed to adjust to the new surroundings. At the end of the first day I could see the male begin to show interest again. 

As far as egg count al I know from the two females I estimate at least 200 eggs. The fish are young and who knows how many will be fertile so at this point I am dreading this 7-day incubation period.

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## Diapterondave

One last note. The eggs were semi adhesive. Though many were laid in the mops. after I removed the breeders adn the spawning grid I shook the mops and many eggs fell to the bottom.

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## Diapterondave

Here are two pics of the eggs. Note how large they are!

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## stormhawk

Dave, those are pretty large eggs. Looks good, I think the eggs should be quite fertile. Good luck and I hope the fry hatch out soon.  :Wink:

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## Diapterondave

Thanks Jianyang. I will keep posting more pics here. This forum has become a great resource on the web! This has become my favorite site to visit everyday.

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## Diapterondave

Well the fry are doing well. They are attracted to light and school in open water from day one. They are rather large. I have been feeding the fry on phytoplankton, rotifers, paramecium, and microworms. The fry appear to be feeding well. If you shine a light in the tank they will gather there as does the food  :Wink:  I am breeding them again this time I used several females and I should get a larger spawn. I will post more pics as soon as I get more time. This has been allot of fun the babies are rather easy to raise!

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## Scott_sg

Hi Dave, you should be pleased, most people seem to have trouble breeding them, so you have definitely done something right. The fry I had seemed much smaller but who knows with these things. Anyway it just goes to show that what is easy for one can be almost impossible for another. 
I have been looking through a lot of breeding reports lately and it is amazing the different experiences people can have with the same fish. Almost like the story of police asking witnesses of a crime, ask ten people what they saw and you get ten different answers.. 
But now if you have some babies coming along you should end up with some good pocket money to support that Diapteron habit  :Smile: 
I don't know really know what they cost over there, but even here in Singapore they are comparatively expensive $3-4 from what I have seen. And in Australia it was even worse, not much change from $10 each. But either way still fun, and something to be proud of.

Scott.

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## stormhawk

Scott, locally the congos are pretty cheap since they're being farmed in good numbers. You can get a shoal at a pretty low price.  :Laughing:  

$3 to $4 per fish is pretty low when you compare the prices some other fishes are commanding.

Diapteron is just a pipe dream for most of us here on this humid island.  :Laughing:

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## Diapterondave

I have to agree with you stormhawk, they are very easy to breed. In fact I also bred some pencilfish this past week and a few others and these are very easy. The fry school from day one and can be found swimming in the current. They are rather large and very robust for tetra fry I am use to. I have to say this fish is mass cultured and I can see why. My 6 females laid over 600 eggs easy this past day. The eggs were very easy to incubate as well. This next time I will gather them from the breeding tank and incubate them in clean O2 rich water with a little acriflavine as I did last time. Wholesale prices for Congos locally are as follows $1 for small, $2.50 med and $5 large. Thats what petstores pay. Breeders will be lucky to get half that. So it was a fun experience though I do not feel after breeding them they are as difficult as reported. The eggs are very robust and very few fungused. The fry ate well from day one and very much were attracted to the light. This is a great fish though and one I hope to have in my fishroom for a longtime.

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## Scott_sg

Hi all, I would much rather be trying to get rid of congo's than neons... 
I was thinking of relative pricing for tetras, but definitely there are much more expensive fish altogether. I cringe when i see some of the prices for pleco's and cichlids, and lately Killifish seem to be getting to some crazy prices.
Commercial breeding is very different to what the average home aquarist can do though. They have a lot more tricks and resources to use, Black ghost Knife fish _Apteronotus albifrons_ are churned out by the thousands in Indonesia now (they use hormones to spawn them from what i know) but i am still to hear of someone breeding them at home. Same with even common fish like neons, commercially they churn them out, but for the average person to breed them at home takes a bit of effort, planning and thought.
And even a common Killi like _A. australe_'s some people have all sorts of problems with and others have them breeding like rabbits. So a lot of it comes down to the individual fish, the local conditions, the breeder and sometimes just a bit of luck.
I was spawning _Sphaerichthys osphromenoides_ Chocolate gouramis 15 years ago and thought they were easy when all the books were saying they had never been bred in captivity. And even when i passed them on to friends some where saying they were easy and others thought I was just fooling around since they had no luck with them at all.

Even when you ask people how they do it, everyone will have there own system and swear by it. Some will say it is an easy fish some say it is hard. You just have to read through killitalk and some of the other breeding reports to see the differences people can have with the same fish. 

As for Diapterons, I have only ever seen them in books!  :Shocked:  

Just my 2.618 cents worth..

Scott.

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## stormhawk

Ah, the regular chocolates. Well if you want to try your hand again with them, and this time a different species, let me know. There's a new batch of juvenile _Sphaerichthys selatanensis_. Very nice, I brought home 6 of 'em.  :Very Happy:

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## Scott_sg

Jianyang don't tempt me! Haha I have my hands full with Killifish and that is enough for now!

But they are all very nice fish and I have seen a lot of them around lately, when I was in Northern Australia I was surrounded by rainbow fish, but i dreamt of collecting all the chocolate's, and betta's and Licorice gourami's in Malaysia... Now I am here I have South American and African Fish..

It is never ending..  :Wink:  It amuses me when I see the guys in South America selling African Killifish. And I keep thinking gee if I was in Brasil, just give me a net and off I would go...

As they say "The grass is always greener on the other side.."

Scott.

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## stormhawk

LOL, Scott, sometimes the temptation's just a little too strong.  :Twisted Evil: 

And yes, I think you're gonna be swamped with killie eggs in no time with all of your recent purchases.  :Cool:  

Good luck and yes, I'd go crazy with a net if I was in Brazil too.  :Laughing:

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