# asian needle nose breeding?



## heatherhoge

I had a pair of asian needle noses breeding like crazy for me. No one in my area has never accomplished breeding these fish so no info was given to me rather than something is going good. :smile: My male of the breeding pair died and I don't know if its a breeding thing like the male dies after he is done doing his job or what. He stopped eating while they were breeding and lived for 3 months then passed away giving us hundreds of babies. I went out and bought 3 more asian needle noses hopeing one would be a male since I can not tell the sex of these fish. My female (i know from observation :twisted: ) wont take to any of them. I am trying to find out are they one mate type of fish and never mate with others or do I possibly have the luck of having 4 females in one tank. :roll: that could be my luck. lol 

any info on the breeding rituals of these guys would be great.


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## Cichlid Man

What size are the others? Maybe they're too young and inexperienced. Keep an eye on them and make sure they don't eat each other, females are particualy firery when mating and may attack the male if he's too small.
As far as I know sexes are indes.... indisting.... indi.... hard to tell apart.LOL.
Obviously you could tell which one was your female though.LOL
Fry are very difficult to feed. What do yours eat?


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## flamingo

Are you talking about xenentodon cancila?

If so the only thing I can remember is that they're eggs are supposedly poisonous.You should document they're breeding though. I have searched every where on breeding when I was planning on getting my first ones and all they said was the eggs are poisonous and that they don't breed a lot for most people.


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## heatherhoge

I am not sure of the scientific name I just know them as asian needle nose. I guess they are family to the gars. I haven't found any info on them breeding at all. Where did you find the info on the eggs? If a web or book let me know so I can see if we are talking about the same fish.


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## Guest

actually i don't think they are related to gars at all. they are known as a "false gar". i think you might get more info by searching needle nose gar though.


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## flamingo

I don;t remmeber the exact site. Your best bet would be to search on google or something.

Aqualandpetsplus.com has some pics on them. Go to they're gar page and they should be on it.

You may be talking about something else than im thinking of because theres 3 different ones that are called asian needlenose fish


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## flamingo

Yes tehy are a flase gar, I think they are more closely related to characins.

Do you have any pics of them though?


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## heatherhoge

I have pix but don't know how to post the pix. I stink with computers. lol. I tryed to post pix but not working for me. I know I prob. doing it wrong but still working on it.


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## heatherhoge

I attempted to attach the pix.


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## heatherhoge

sorry didn't work. :chair:


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## Fishboy93

Go to photobucket.com and put pics there then from there upload them using the img file Ex.









[/IMG]http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a131/Fishboy93/FullAquariumPic.jpg is what it should look like and then the IMG on the end like up front. Anywho congrats on ur Needle noses


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## heatherhoge

I checked out the web. I have to wait a while for it to activate. Soon as I can work with it I will try to insert pix again. Thanks for the advice.


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## Fishboy93

Sure i wanna see the pics of ur fish


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## heatherhoge

ok I think I got this pix thing going. The pix of the asian needle nose is not the best but hope you can make it out. Ok here goes my attempt :chair:









Thanks for info on the website I like it!! :grin:


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## heatherhoge

yaaaaaaaaaaaaaa I did it. lol


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## Guest

look like needle nose gars to me, xenentodon cancila. they will get about a foot long i believe. they eat just about anything that fits into their mouth also, so be aware of that.


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## heatherhoge

I had them for a while. They really are not pigish.lol They eat what they need. They don't eat till all feeders are gone. The biggest one eats about 6 feeder and wont even touch a feeder for 24 hours. If a fish is to big for their mouth they wont even try. It's amazing how they can size up the food with out even trying to eat it.


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## Cichlid Man

I like your fish, but that goldfish is too big for them.


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## flamingo

Yep defintely xenentodon cancila....

Is that goldfish they're food? If so please don't ffed them that.... get them on some other fish or even better yet something like freeze dried krill.

And yes some do get about a foot long. Most are around 9 inches though.


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## heatherhoge

LOL No they are not the feeders. They eat feeder guppies. I adopted these gold fish as a rescue from a friends who tank broke and now I am trying to find the 5 gold fish a home. We put them in this tank since there is only the needle noses in it and the water being a little warm I though would make these 5 hemerage but they are doing good. The gold do help keep the tank clean but they have to go. the needle noses wont eat frozen. Believe me I tried everything. So now they get guppies and rosey reds if store out of guppies. I also tried ghost shrimp and they wont even touch that. I also had this issue with stingrays. If they want live food they will starve them selves.


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## flamingo

yeah, a lot of my fish took weeks of starvation before they would try eating frozen or whatever. I feel really bad about doing it but it helps me a lot and helps decrease the chance of diseases.

Nice looking needlenoses though! The first one I had was so beautiful and like around 8 inches but it got fungus from feeders and died.


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## Guest

heatherhoge said:


> LOL No they are not the feeders. They eat feeder guppies. I adopted these gold fish as a rescue from a friends who tank broke and now I am trying to find the 5 gold fish a home. We put them in this tank since there is only the needle noses in it and the water being a little warm I though would make these 5 hemerage but they are doing good. The gold do help keep the tank clean but they have to go. the needle noses wont eat frozen. Believe me I tried everything. So now they get guppies and rosey reds if store out of guppies. I also tried ghost shrimp and they wont even touch that. I also had this issue with stingrays. If they want live food they will starve them selves.


stingrays don't usually have a problem with eating if water quality, tank, and tankmates are okay. what did you offer it? what kind of stingray was it?


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## heatherhoge

I had a male and female common freshwater rays. They were in with the needle noses. We fed them the live too. I am a believer if they are ment to eat live and do so in the wild I will provide the same for them in the tank if they go for 3 days of hunger. Sometimes we can't change mother natures ways. It is a risk feeding live but they deal with that risk on a daily basis in the wild. We had a power outage while we were gone and the rays died. We lost lots of fish that day it was very tragic. Since I adopted the gold fish after the rays died I decided to hold off on rays till I get rid of the golds. I had the rays for 3 years so they were young adults. I was hoping to breed them too. I have fed them live for the whole time as well as rinsed off worms. I always put the feeders in a 10 gal tank and let them sit in there and if any look bad I got rid of them. I now raise a tank of feeders but they don't breed fast enought for the food demand in our home. lol. If you keep you eyes on the feeders or raise them your self allows you to have more control which ones the fish can and can not eat is the best way I found to give them what they want and keep it safe.

Sorry to hear about your needle nose and thanks for the complement. Even watching or choosing the feedeers is not 100% safe but like in my situation you end up looseing the fish to other things too like our power. If we want to keep them completely safe I say the tank life is the most dangerous for a fish since we try to mimic their enviornment and sometimes fail but its a risk we are willing to take to enjoy the beauty of the fish.


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## Guest

by common im guessing you mean motoro? ive heard the P. Motoros called "commons" before. either that are some more common freshwater stingrays such as the P. Reticulatas or P. Hystrix.
im sorry about your rays...


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## heatherhoge

I am not exactly sure. Our pet stores in this area are not very knowlegable.lol. they looked sorta like the one you have as your pix. I did research on the net but no good info on the "common" . I haven't found any good books on them either. The pet stores don't know anything but how to make a sell so thats worthless. That pix is that your ray?


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## Guest

no, but it looks exactly like mine. it's a P. Reticulata


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## heatherhoge

nice! Were did you find your info on the rays? Im looking for info any were. How long have you been in this hobby? Just wondering you seem to know your stuff! I have been in the hobby for 3 years. Yes my rays were one of my starter fish. Talk about starting off with the hard stuff first. I did research alot before starting the hobby but research is nothing what I have experinced. It seems to be one of those things if you don't get your feet wet you really don't know. Amazing hobby.


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## Guest

google is your friend for info. but i just happened to stumble across this site a little while back (after i had my ray for a while, but it's good info): http://www.kingsoftheaquarium.com/
they have a pretty good profile on freshwater stingrays. also, the book Freshwater Stingrays, A Complete Pet Owner's Manual by Richard Ross was really good. If you check out the profile section here at FishForums, I also made a profile.
my mom got be into the hobby when i was just a little kid. she's been keeping fish since before i was born, so ive always been into it. she bought me my first aquarium when i was about 7 or 8. ive been keeping fish ever since.
your right that rays can be difficult for a begining keeper, but since you seem to have a lot of experience now and if you're willing to, id say go for it again. that is of course if you have the proper tank (size and such).
if you want anymore info on FW stingrays, be sure to check out the profile i made on the P. Reticulata or ask as many questions as you like. ill see if i can help.


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## heatherhoge

thanks alot that helps. I will be getting back into rays hopefully to breed. Thats cool that you got to grow up into the hobby. I will have to check the sites out tomorrow I have to teach class tonight but I will let you know if any questions. You been great help.


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## flamingo

Do you treat the feeders when they are in a seperate tank?

They do eat fish in the wild but feeder fish are usually crammed into little tanks in big quantities. Like goldfish, disease spreads very quickly. I say go ahead and do it as long as you treat them in a seperate tank.
Just trying to hlep because losing my needlenose was a [email protected]#ch. All because of the stupid little fish....

Like I said document it or just write some of the important things down!


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## heatherhoge

No I haven't treated the feeders but that is a good idea. I will start doing that. Sorry to hear about your needle nose. That website was great info. Thanks for the info on that. I will have to try to find the book.


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