unplanned black skirt tetra fry.... erm

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fern1knits

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Mar 24, 2017
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I have a fully cycled and fully stocked, heavily planted tank.

I thought I had done my research but apparently not. This morning I saw a black skirt tetra fry...

So... um... was I supposed to make sure I only bought males or females if I did not intend to breed them? It took me about five trips to the LFS to stock my tank and no one ever asked me what sex I wanted.

Now that I apparently have a breeding male/female combination, do I need to separate them if I don't want hundreds of fry?

Okay, details. I have 7 (now 8) black skirt tetras, 2 siamese algae eaters, 2 dwarf gourami, 1 pearl gourami, 2 mystery snails, 5 ghost shrimp, 4 amano shrimp, and a plethora of pond snails I'm trying to get rid of.

Does anyone have a photo of black skirt tetra eggs? I've been trying to manage all of the eggs in the tank but I assumed they were all from the pond snails.

I've also spent HOURS trying to sex my fish and, sorry, but I cannot tell the difference between males and females. I think my two dwarf gouramis are male (mainly because they are both brightly colored). I have no idea about the sex of my Siamese Algae Eaters and I've definitely seen them play around together in a way that might not have been platonic roughhousing (but also, I'm a newbie and don't know what I'm looking at). And I do think my mystery snails have been mating.

Sorry for all of the rambling questions. This was very unexpected.
 
I don't have the answers but am very interested to hear from the experienced folks about this, too. I thought it was hard to breed anything besides livebearers; I recently got a bunch of fry from a livebearer and am trying to figure out how to keep that population under control, but uh oh, never even thought of checking the sex of any of my other fish!
 
As far as my knowledge goes, black skirt tetras are not really sexually dimorphic. They're egg scatterers, so most of the eggs will fall down in the rocks and be eaten by other fish, including the parent fish. You likely won't end up with hundreds like you will with livebearing fish, just a few here and there and should you have a full brood survive, most local shops will take fry (as long as they aren't livebearers). I, personally, wouldn't worry about separating them.

As far as breeding tetras go, it can be fairly easy to do by accident. Good food, good water quality and they'll spawn.
 
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Yep. Black skirt tetras will happily breed if they have good conditions. If you saw one, there are probably a few more, but when they spawn, they release hundreds of eggs, and very few will survive. The ghost shrimp likely get most of them.

In general--MOST fish will breed in the home aquarium. It's kind of a good thing, since very few fish (other than livebearers, and everyone who mentions having them is warned about how prolific they can be) will breed if the conditions aren't good.

Look for a local aquarium club. Most all have monthly auctions at meetings in addition to larger annual auctions, and you can sell the offspring. Many clubs also have Breeders Award Programs, to recognize aquariasts for breeding aquarium animals.
 
Yes, I specifically did not get livebearers because I didn't feel I was prepared to handle the fry and population control.

And I assumed that with my SAEs and shrimp that the eggs would be a non-issue.
 
I think you're right about "if you saw one, there's probably more." The fry tend to stay well hidden among my plants, especially the hornwort, but I think I've seen at least two.

They're really cute and I hope they survive. I ask around about a local club. Thanks for the tip.
 
Mostly likely it's the density of plants that shelters a few eggs, plus fry in planted tanks can constantly graze on the microfauna associated with healthy plants.
 
Tifftastic said:
As far as breeding tetras go, it can be fairly easy to do by accident. Good food, good water quality and they'll spawn.
Click to expand...

Yay! So I guess this means I'm doing it right! I'm one of those newbies who got my aquarium off Craigslist for cheap, went to Petco (or Petsmart, I don't remember) and was told to cycle my aquarium with hardy fish like the BS tetras, only later to learn about the nitrogen cycle.

I've only had my aquarium since January and I've really been trying to do it right after my initial flub.
 
I adopted lemon tetras from a club friend that had accidentally spawned them to 3 generations a few years ago. They were the largest fish in his tank, but not in mine. We both have pretty densely plants tanks. But I have more predatory fish & rather than breeding & surviving fry, mine are being slowly picked off. I'm not too disappointed, but it would have been nice to see tiny tetra fry!

Go skirts! Good luck! Any fish spawning (beyond livebearers, lol) is a credit to your good care.

Many cichlids are fairly easy too, should the breeding bug bite you. You might need some more tanks!
 
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