# Aarrrrrggghhh!!!



## TheOldSalt (Jan 28, 2005)

The good news:

My Odessa Barbs are spawning all over the place.

The bad news:

The "place" is a 20-long cyprinid community tank with 4 Odessas, 6 White Clouds, and 3 Flagfin Shiners.
The White Clouds are eating the eggs almost as fast as the barbs can scatter them. Isn't that somewhat uncharacteristic of White Clouds? The worst part is that I have to be at work in an hour and can't really DO anything to fix the situation but hope some eggs survive. It's a heavily planted tank, so I suppose some should make it.

I've never seen Odessas looking this good. One of these days I just HAVE to get a camera with close-up focus ability.

The 4 Odessas are 2 males & 2 females, and all 4 are spawning with lot of partner-swapping.

I've never spawned Odessas before, so I'm glad they finally did it, but I'm irked that they had to go and do it right NOW when I can't tend them. The worst part is the fact that spawning is ony half the game with Odessas, since much of the time they are sterile anyway. Odessas are a hybrid, you see, and not just a normal a+b=c hybrid either, but a derived hybrid created by crossing other hybrids together, something like a+b=c, d+b=e, a=d=f c+f=Odessas. That's why Odessas aren't so commonly seen; they are a royal pain to make since it's rare to get some that are fertile enough to breed directly. Oh, well; here's hoping!


----------



## Lydia (Feb 6, 2005)

good luck! my fish are my cory eggs except for a few that i scraped of the side in hopes that at least SOME would be able to hatch....i put them in the breeder net but they must have gotten eaten by the platy fry....so i hops you have better luck than i did!


----------



## TheOldSalt (Jan 28, 2005)

Well this is day three, and so far, no fry are to be seen. The adults have spawned each morning for three days now, though, so tomorrow when I remove all the fish from the tank, whatever eggs there are should start hatching for at least three or 4 days afterward, assuming they're fertile. I hope they are fertile, since it'll be fun to take a bunch of Odessas to my my LFS to show that they'll not only live here, but spawn. My Lfs won't carry them, you see, because she can never get them to color up, so she can't sell them.


----------



## fishn00b (Jun 10, 2005)

Well best of luck to you, I hope you find them and get a whole bunch of fry. Maybe it will convince your LFS to sell Odessas or maybe even try to buy yours!


----------



## TheOldSalt (Jan 28, 2005)

Well, it's day five, and there's still no sign of any fry.
Rats!


----------



## blixem (Jun 13, 2005)

Sorry mate, better luck next time? =)


----------



## fishn00b (Jun 10, 2005)

I'm sorry... I guess you'll just have to try again and hope for the best.


----------



## awesome kid (Jun 10, 2005)

if at first u dont succeed (like me) try try again


----------



## TheOldSalt (Jan 28, 2005)

The really irritating part is that they're STILL spawning every morning, spewing out a seemingly endless supply of eggs, but they refuse to hatch.


----------



## blixem (Jun 13, 2005)

TheOldSalt said:


> The really irritating part is that they're STILL spawning every morning, spewing out a seemingly endless supply of eggs, but they refuse to hatch.



Not fertile and turning white, or just plain not hatching?


----------



## TheOldSalt (Jan 28, 2005)

I'm not exactly sure, since I can't find any eggs. They fall down into the plants and gravel where I know a lot of them survive, but by now they should have hatched if they were fertile. Like I mentioned earlier, Odessa fertility is a crapshoot anyway, so my hopes weren't very high, but it's still disappointing.


----------



## ni317 (Jan 18, 2005)

the fish you are breeding and the tank mates are eating the eggs as fast as the are dropped or shortly after.fish like your need marbles or hide the eggs but then still they still may eat the fry when the free swiming.
If you still have the other tank move the pairs to the other tank and use marbles as a substrate to hide the eggs from the parents.I bread dainos one time and they breed the same and the marbles worked very well to hide the fry If your noit wanting 100's of fry let them spawn one time and then move them to the t5ank they were in.for small fry the best thing for them is to have 2 or 3 baby brine shrimp hatcherys going for them.After a few weeks of 2 to 3 times aweek feedings of this you can mash up flake food in a baggie and feed them this and cut back to ocne aday feeding for shrimp.
IF you are wanting to make a little money at breeding learning how to ship fish is very easy and you can sell them on aquabid or a nother fish/pet auction web site.


----------



## Lydia (Feb 6, 2005)

Glad you are trying to be helpful Ni, but this is an old thread. He might not still be trying to breed them...


----------



## TheOldSalt (Jan 28, 2005)

That's okay. I'm always trying to breed them, just not going to very much trouble with it. one day i suppose I will indeed set up a dedicated spawning tank just for them.


----------

