Features breeding thorns

The thorns are peace-loving fish, they look beautiful in an aquarium, especially colored breeds. Shelf life is small - 3-5 years, so many breeders try to breed thorns at home, and they are not bad at it. These aquarium fish breed well. When creating the necessary conditions, females spawn from which tiny fry appear.

In ordinary thornsia, the body color is olive-gray, two black stripes pass from the back to the stomach, the tail zone and the dark fins. But there are also artificially bred breeds with a bright color: yellow, green, purple, orange, raspberry and blue belly. Such a fish looks gorgeous in an aquarium, but it is not always possible to get the same beautiful fry when reproducing. The fact is that there are two types of colored thorns:

• thirteen caramelstained by special injection;
• thornce glofish - These are genetically modified fish, the genes of luminous jellyfish and corals were included in the structure of their DNA.

Glofish fry completely adopt the color of their parents, unlike caramels, in which offspring are born colorless. therefore if it is planned not only the content of thorns, but also their breeding, then it is better to acquire a breed of glofish. They differ from caramels in a more intense and uniform color. Of course, in glofish in the litter, several fry can be colorless, but the main percentage of babies will still take the color of their parents.

In thorns, sexual characteristics are weakly expressed, but one can distinguish a male from a female:

• the dorsal fin of the male is pointed, while the female is rounded;
• the anal fin of females is wider than that of males;
• females are larger and more pot-bellied.

For spawning, individuals from 8 months to 2 years old are selected. The fish should be at least 3-5 cm long. For successful reproduction, one female and two males or two females and three males must be deposited in a separate tank.

Spawning is prepared in advance, for its arrangement, a capacity of at least 20 liters is suitable. Water should be soft and warm. The temperature is within + 24 ... 28 degrees Celsius, and the hardness is 5-10 units. To soften the water, melt, rain or boiled water is used, and to increase the temperature, a heater is used. So that when transplanting to a new environment, the fish do not have stress, part of the water can be taken from the aquarium. The tank must be equipped with an aeration system, but additional light is not needed.

To protect caviar cover the bottom Javanese moss. Its dense thickets will protect future offspring from hungry parents. But this does not guarantee the absolute safety of eggs. Therefore, for more reliable protection set the separator grid, it is placed just above the bottom, about 2 cm. The eggs will slip into the cells and, thus, become inaccessible to adults. For greater structural stability, a pair of large stones can be placed under the mesh.

In order to stimulate spawning, the temperature of the water in the general aquarium is raised by 2-3 degrees, and the fish are fasted for a day: they don’t give any food during the day. The next day they are well fed with high-quality live food. The bloodworm or corvette is most suitable; these goodies will give strength and set you up for "love games."

In the spawning season, thornsy is launched in the evening, and in the morning, “courtship” most often begins. But sometimes the fish need more time to adapt to the new space, and spawning begins only after a week.

therefore Do not be upset if the fish did not spawn immediately, perhaps they are still getting used to. Every day, spawning fish continue to be fed with bloodworms or other live food, and they monitor the water values. Particles of uneaten food must be removed, otherwise they will rot and poison the aquatic environment with harmful substances. This can discourage the fish from wanting to breed.

If spawning does not occur within two weeks, then for some time the males and females are separated separately from each other. And then they reconnect, having done all of the above. The most common reasons fish do not breed are:

• cold or hard water in spawning;
• conditions in spawning are very different from the environment in the general aquarium;
• poor fish condition, exhaustion and illness;
• strong knocking, clatter and loud music, as well as excessive attention of the owner to water pets;
• improper age of thorns; some individuals already spawn at the age of two years.

During spawning, males chase the female throughout the aquarium, circle around her and snuggle up against her abdomen. In the process of these “love games”, the female throws eggs in small portions, which the males immediately fertilize. Caviar settles on the bottom or on the leaves of plants. The whole process can take from 2 to 3 hours. At one time, the female is able to lay about 1000 eggs, but not all of them will be viable.

After spawning is completed, adults are immediately sent to a common aquarium. In spawning, a quarter of the water is replaced with fresh water and a bactericidal solution, methylene blue, is added. This is an excellent tool for preventing the development of fungus and infecting the reservoir with parasites that can kill young animals.

About a day later, larvae emerge from the eggs, which hang on the glass and leaves of plants. And after 4 days, fry appear, at this moment several snails can be hooked, they will maintain cleanliness in the aquarium. Kids are fed live dust 4 times a day: a solution with ciliates is dripped with a pipette or syringe directly into the water with fry. Other small-sized foods can be given, such as brine shrimp nauplii or specialized dry foods for fry.

During the first two weeks, daily replacement of ¼ of the water is mandatory. Fish grow unevenly and stronger can eat the weak. Therefore, teenagers are sorted, large are planted in a separate container. For this reason, for breeding thorns 2-3 additional tanks are needed. When the baby grows and gets stronger, it can be transplanted into a common aquarium.

In the next video, you can observe the growth of fry of GloFish thorns.