Understanding Schooling Fish – Part II

In the previous article on understanding schooling fish, we discuss the common behaviors of schooling fish. In this following article we shall discuss on feeding and breeding tropical schooling fish.

Schooling fish are mostly omnivorous, and share the same breeding characteristics. Most schooling fish are egg scatterers. This means that, in a community tank, there are certain guidelines that need to be followed to keep them healthy and prolific.

Feeding and Breeding Schooling Fish

Feeding Tropical Schooling Fish: Tropical fishes like tetras, barbs, and danios are omnivorous. Most tetras eat insects, but also feed on flakes and pellets. Barbs and danios eat live foods but also supplement on vegetation.

Schooling fish prefer to swim in the middle of the tank, and enjoy chasing live food such as mosquito larvae, bloodworms, etc. If, however, these are not available, flakes floating in the water are a good enough substitute. If both live foods and flakes are unavailable, the plants in the tank will also do just fine for these omnivorous species.

Feed your schooling fish frozen foods as a last resort. Remember that live foods are essential to characins and cyprinids, because a diet rich in live foods enhances their coloration.

Breeding Schooling Fish: Tetras, barbs, and danios are all egg scatterers and do not exercise any type of parental care for their eggs or young. Though they may breed in a community tank, most of the eggs and fragile fry may not survive.

Tetra broods are usually small, while barbs spawn with hundreds of eggs. In both cases, adults should be removed before they even get a chance to prey on their eggs and young ones. For better success in breeding egg scatterers, transfer a breeding pair to a spawning tank.

Differentiate The Sex: How do you determine which is male and female? Sometimes, the dorsal fin is longer in the males, while the best way of determining a female is the bulge in her belly when fed well or ready to spawn.

Reproductive Cycle of Schooling Fish: The reproductive cycle of most egg scatterers follows a basic pattern. After being fed and kept well, the male will start chasing the female. Eventually, the female becomes co-operative and the pair will spawn side by side, usually scattering several eggs at a time.

When done, the adult fish usually get hungry and start scavenging for tasty eggs. To protect the eggs, one technique is to cover the tank’s bare bottom with a substrate of gravel, marble, java moss, or mesh. The eggs will usually roll in between these, making them harder to be spotted and reached by their omnivorous parents.

You can also use fine-leafed plants at the bottom of the tank. Again, eggs dispersed onto vegetation are difficult to be seen and reached. Another advantage is that the plants then also offer biological filtration, and harbor small first foods to feed the fry. Plants work well for barbs and tetras, which tend to scatter their eggs and milt onto vegetation.

Feeding Fry: Remember that good water quality is essential for successful breeding. Fry should be fed plenty of infusoria, live micro-foods, baby brine shrimp, or fine powdered fry food. Always feed them a varied diet for balanced nutrition and better growth.

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