My newest project is the breeding of female golden guppies. The males are the ones that have the long colorful tails. Females have a short tail with usually little or no color, and their bodies are gray. I am breeding female guppies that have colorful golden bodies instead of gray. I am breeding them golden males with red tails. I am also throwing into the strain a few males with exotic bodies and tails. One golden male has a split red tail. One dark male has a yellow leopard tail. One male has green spots and a green lyetail. I am waiting to see what evolves from the gold females.
With live bearers I use Penn-Plax baby nest and Penn Plaxx auto baby saver to save as many babies as I can before they are eaten. I net new ones out almost every morning and put them in a 2 gallon kit aquarium with an air sponge filter. After feeding the other tanks from the lid, I leave the tiny bit of dust crumbs and shake it into the baby tank. I dont want to have left-over food at all in the tank. I keep 8-10 dwarf cory catfish in my adult guppy tanks to get food that sinks before the guppies can eat it.

I created these time-lapse micro-photography images using a common web cam, freeware webcam software, freeware screen capture program, and freeware image editors. Parents and teachers can make cam projects of their own. I used a computer desk cam and free Snagit Screen Capture in curser select mode, a free photo editor to edit in the best ones and then free Gif Construction Set to make an animated gif movie from the screen capture's jpg photos. You could also make one of flowers blooming, leaves turning towards light, spiders making webs, clouds moving, fungus growing on bread, potatoes rooting in a glass. The fish on this page are livebearers and egglayers. Possible topics might be the differences in birth of fish, reptiles, and mammals, and the ways different animals bring up newborn through adulthood. Albino and marble dwarf cory catfish breed the same way. I took time lapse of both and have used samples interchangeably. This female albino dwarf catfish takes a break from munching on a shrimp pellet to pose for us and say hello.

The female nuzzles the male's abdomen with her nose. He then fertilizes a batch of eggs, she has pushed out of her, which she holds with two lower fins, clamped together. See the little white patch between her bottom fins? She uses these for "hands" to hold the eggs. Now she tries to figure out the best place to put them.

The female catfish now pushes herself against the glass, depositing eggs. They will deposit eggs on glass, rocks, or plants. The tank needs to be very clean, sparse feeding leave little or no left-overs that will fungus or hatch. A good water flow from filter or air stone is important. A temperature of 76F to78F works. They are often triggered to start laying eggs by a water change, so do it. This is your chance to suck up as much debris as possible before the eggs are present. Scrape the glass for them. Even do a second change and more cleaning if they don't start after the first one. They usually start in the morning but can decide anytime.

In this video, an Albino Dwarf Corydorus " catfish is fanning and mouthing them off to prevent fungus.
Fifty of the albino egg didn't fungus. Chances are the pair will eat them so it is safer to remove the adults. Have a air stone near the eggs so a current is present. Use the air stone a few times a day to "fan the eggs" without getting close enough to break them free.

When my dwarf catfish laid eggs I took advantage of the fact that they used the glass side of the tank. I pushed the cam right against the glass. The movement you see in the eggs are the babies, now awake and restless. They will soon try to break out of their egg. Teachers and students can find many topics for discussion, along with simply watching new life occurring.

This sequence is of the last few marble dwarf cory catfish babies to emerge from eggs. They began coming out of their eggs exactly five days from being laid. Two near the bottom are popping out and four near the top are moving inside the eggs, soon to try to emerge. Top right one is wiggling, tail out, trying to break free. The hard part now will be getting food into their small mouths. A liquid diet will start. They are in a one-gallon aquarium kit that was purchased at for $15. I was able to breed the fish in that space. Usually 10-20 gallons is used.

New baby albino dwarf catfish, just hatched, resting against the glass on the side of the tank.

An extreme close-up of a baby marble dwarf catfish, sitting on a piece of gravel, right next to the glass. The pebble is huge compared to the baby. You can see the his fins flapping, and his food sac under the belly. The left eye is twitching.

The hard part was getting the tightest focus, because my fingers would move the cam away from the glass when I would try to use the focus. I got the cam working, then I used a screen capture program that would only capture the "active window" and not the whole screen. Also, I chose one that had a timer, which I set to capture every 15 minutes. I also had to find one that would not just display it, but would auto-save to a directory. Then I used GIF animator that basically builds a movie as an animated GIF slideshow. I set at 20 milliseconds. I set the cam for 6 frames per second so the fish swimming wouldn't be too jumpy. I used freeware software for everything, downloaded from the Internet by doing searches.

Here is another extreme close-up which I have also blown up to a large size. You can see the marble dwarf babies are mostly water and are clear to see through. Two sit on a pebble moments after birth, pondering what to do with their lives. They are both flapping their fins. This pose caught one looking at the side, and one looking down from above him. The pebble is the size of a little fingernail. They already have dots.

swimming at the glass, eating tiny white worms and bacteria.

See their size in relation to a tiny pebble of gravel.

Marble Cory's I bred, just about a month old. 3/8 of an inch.
I have been hatching brine shrimp eggs for their food.

Marble Cory's 2 months old, munching on an algae wafer.

A fish tank is like a recipe. It is important to not mix certain ingredients so they all get along and don't kill each other by nipping tails. In a 20 gallon-long tank I have 42 fish, layered top, middle, and bottom. It depends on where their mouth is and their feeding habits. The cichlids get big and aggressive (angels, oscars, dempseys). Goldfish are boring. These all get big and would eat community fish, but could be kept with chiclids. Tiger barbs are biters and will kill fish by removing their tail. Blue guarimis, fancy danios, and some mollies are aggressive also. Some will chase themselves if you have 6 to 8 of them.

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