Breeding Blue Eyes

Breeding blue-eyes in captivity is essentially the same as for rainbowfishes. Blue-eyes are a relatively short lived species in the wild and females may only spawn once, usually at around one year of age, rarely living to spawn a second season. Males often live around two years. In captivity, life expectancy can increase to four years or more if appropriate aquarium management procedures are employed. The secret in maintaining long-term captive populations of all the blue-eye species is to constantly breed them. If you fail to breed them on a regular timetable they will become too old and in the end they will just fade away.

The easiest way to breed blue-eyes is to set up a pair in a small 50-litre tank containing an overabundant growth of Java moss and some floating water sprite. With a bit of patience and small feedings of live foods to condition the female, they should do what comes naturally. Daily observation of the tank should eventually find some fry hiding in the water sprite. You can either remove the parents or take a chance that the fry will survive. If you wish to raise larger numbers, it would be best to set up a small group of eight or more in a larger aquarium and provide them with artificial spawning mops. You then check the mops twice a day if possible. If you find eggs attached to the mops you can either exchange the egg-laden mop for a new one or remove the eggs by hand. The fertile, water-hardened eggs of blue-eyes are reasonably hard and rather large for a small fish.

Incubation times vary both among species and with temperature. At 25°C, hatching usually takes between seven and twenty-one days. Although the blue-eye species are only small their newly hatched larvae are rather large and can be fed powdered commercial fry foods, infusoria, microworms, brineshrimp nauplii or similar fine foods about 12 hours after hatching. They should also be fed several times a day if possible. Their growth rate will depend on the water and food quality provided with maturity being reached within one year.