Hi all. I need some help setting up a tank to breed fish in. I have a 20 gallon tank that I have a dinosaur bichir and a needle nose gar in. Needless to say they eat a lot of fish. So to save money I'd like to start brewding them myself.

I have no idea where to start though.

So if someone can post a list of what I'd need and some general rules or breeding that would be great. Girl to guy ratio and stuff like that.

I'm sure this has been posted about before so if you just want to give me links I can look through them too. I am on my phone and searching isn't my friend on it.

Thanks everyone!

I would think the first question to ask you is do you have another tank to set up for this venture and do you have a larger tank for your current fish? I know those fish need lots of space.

Yes and yes.

The bichir and the gar are both small right now(size not appetite). But they will eventually be transferred into my 100 gallon tank.

I have another ten and a twenty gallon tank to use for breeding.

If you are looking for a live bearer to breed just to use their fry as a food source for your predators why not just get some guppies. They are colorful, easy to breed and multiply fast, common to find, and they are small. Just my opinion.

If you must use livebearers to feed these fish I would suggest some Ilyodon. If you keep xantusi or furcidens they breed pretty quickly (a batch per female every 8 weeks at about 70deg F) and the fry are the size of 2-3 month old guppies.

Xantusi are one of my top 3 favorite goodeids, even though nobody seems to want to keep them. I have had them for 5 years, they are colorful and active. See the photo of a male in my album.

You could also keep Goodea atripinnis as they also seem to breed like rabbits.

However, instead of keeping these tank busters why not keep, breed and disseminate goodeids or other livebearers? They are very interesting fish, easy to keep in many cases, challenging in others and are not tank busters.

I don’t think your gar will show its natural behavior in any small tank. That is a tank that will not allow at least a depth (front to back) of at least 2x times the fish length and 4x the length. Depending on the species needle nose gar can get to 16” long which means a tank of 32” depth and 6’ long. Needle Nose Gar are designed for predation at the surface of the water so you really need a bigger tank than that to house these fish to the long term health of the fish. Unless you have a special 100 gallon tank you do not come close to what the fish really needs to be happy in captivity over the long term.

You may do very well with pike livebearers, Belonesox belizanus belizanus in that small of a tank and even get them to breed which is always fun. These fish look like pike and can be very nasty but are very cool looking and stay smaller than most gar.

I wish you luck but livebearers are not just for live food for other fish and I wouldn’t sell them to you for that purpose.

So is everyone on here as condescending as you all have been? That's good to know. I'll take my business elsewhere.

Bye then.
I find that a much more prolific fish than the average livebearer is convict cichlids. Their fry are just as tasty to a predator and they produce hundreds at a time at 10 or 12 day intervals as long as you remove the fry they are caring for.

Dear FishFolk,

I'd be wary of using convict cichlids fry as feeders. I did that for some wild caught Nomorhampus brembachi (which were very efficient predators). I eventually ended up with a lot of convict survivors in the tank.

Guppies are good but I would suggest Gambusia affinis. They really seem to breed fast. Plus I can't stand Dambusia.

Best wishes,

Earl

Hi !
I've just visited this forum. Happy to get acquainted with you. Thanks.

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