someone asked about breeding white clouds

[Ursus sapien]

There was a post this morning asking for information re white cloud breeding (for feeder fish). It was deleted during the site reset, but, as it happened, I saved the following reply to a page on my blog:-) Phew. I hate rewrites! Hope this helps:

breeding white clouds:
White clouds are really easy to breed, if you treat them nice. They don't eat their eggs or babies, so no need for mops. If you're going for volume (growing feeder fish), a grow out tank would be useful.
Young fish gather at the water surface, close to but not in, floating plants, making them easy to catch and transfer. Wait 'till they're about 2 weeks old and less fragile. If you don't chase them, clouds often come to the net to check it out.
*If you want large numbers of young, your set-up should 3 to 4 feet long. I use a low 44 gallon and a four foot 35g.
*For others who just want to breed 'a few', a twenty gallon would suffice. They will breed in a ten gallon, but clouds are active fish and don't belong in small tanks.
*Side mount your filter out-put (rather than from the back) to give the males a long display run. They display and court most vigorously in the outflow. White clouds breed best in cool aquariums with good water flow - they're river fish.
*If you're unable to side mount, position the out-flow midway along the back and leave a wide clear area in front of the flow.
*The aquarium should include a mass of floating plants, such as riccia, elodea, hornwort or naja grass. The spawning pairs with go into the plant mass to lay their eggs. What ever plants you use, the mass should be dense. Hair algae or moss works as well. Floating plants also encourage springtails, an excellent white cloud food.
*Choice of substrate isn't critical. I have sand in the 44, and the 35 is bare-bottom. Rooted plants are nice but also not critical.
*Clouds will use plastic plants or mops for spawning, but these are less effective and don't grow much food for the babies.
*Feeding the babies: a mature tanks with plants and driftwood will host a lot of aufwuchs and microorganisms, ideal 1st food for the minuscule babies. You'll get better survival rates and stronger babies simply by going natural.
*When you notice free swimming fry, supplement with small amounts of microworm, finely powdered fry food and krill fines. I also feed frozen rotifers (when I can find them, that is), frozen baby brine shrimp and live young daphnia and copepods.
*The grow out tank should also be mature and feature plants and wood. Raising the temp in the grow out tank to 23C -24C will increase the growth rate.
*Feeding the adults: yes, I know they're just feeders most people (too bad, really, as clouds are awesome community fish), but the garbage in/garbage out principle applies. Look after your breeding colony as carefully as your trophy fish and you'll get better food fish. Feed a good staple flake food, supplemented with micro worms, live and frozen daphnia, live midge larvae, frozen blood worms/larvae, frozen brine shrimp etc.
*Don't over crowd your breeding colony. It stresses the fish and will increase the pollutants in the water. If your feeders are infected with bacteria and other pathogens, your trophy fish will eventualy get sick, too.

Clouds are vigorous, active, loosely schooling fish that display frequently and get along with most other aquarium inhabitants. You can even breed shrimp with clouds in the tank. Non fishkeeping friends who see them for the first time often comment that the clouds remind them of salmon:-)

cheers, Storm

[Ursus sapien]

newly hatched clouds will rest on surfaces (like leaves and glass) before joining the others at the surface:

less than an hour later, and barely 2mm long:

[crazy72]

Very cool. Thanks for sharing.

[raygen168]

Good Post Storm! Nice info's

[SeaHorse_Fanatic]

Thank you for sharing. Very informative and always good to have someone with first hand experience do a write up.