# what's an easy fish to breed?



## myztic01 (Jan 4, 2016)

I would like to show my class the reproduction of the fish species but I was just wondering if there are any suggestions on an easy fish to breed to definitely end up with fry to raise. I am an elementary school teacher and I remember how exciting it was in school when my class bred and raised guppy fry. just looking for something to do to get the year over with fast for the youngins, please no rude comments! thank you all in advance!


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## trilobite (May 18, 2011)

Guppies. Pretty much all you need is water


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## NickAu (Sep 28, 2015)

Hi

Be glad to give you a few ideas, But first I need some more info.

1 What are you going to do with the fry? 
2 How big is the tank? Filter? Air stone?
3 Tap water parameters, EG, PH, KH,GH ?
4 Will it have live plants.

Regardless of the type of fish you will need to cycle the tank 
CYCLING: the two-sentence tutorial


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## trilobite (May 18, 2011)

Lol opps sorry just read that youve already done guppies


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## Straubrey (Aug 5, 2014)

Swordtails are another live bearer that's pretty easy to breed. Not as easy as guppies, but close!

When I was in school, we raised tadpoles in class (got them from a pond). We then let the adult frogs go. It is really neat to watch them develop!


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## Kay333 (Dec 23, 2014)

I've got a classroom 20g tank, but I chose not to have live bearers. We've got black phantom tetras and will one day have cardinals too. We also have a snail. Once the tank is established its pretty easy to keep running but don't forget to think of things like Christmas spring and summer breaks, what will happen to the fish then? Do you have a water source close? Lugging five gallon buckets up the stairs sucks... And what will you do with all the guppy fry? They'll just keep reproducing if left in the tank from my understanding. 


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## NickAu (Sep 28, 2015)

You know what might be cool if you got say a 20 gallon filtered tank Apple snails, these can grow BIG Like Baseball size, I'm sure the boys would love them and so would most if not all the girls, In a properly set up tank they make fantastic pets.

Image found on google


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## Kay333 (Dec 23, 2014)

I've got a mystery snail in my tank and the kids love her! She laid eggs but they didn't hatch so it started a good discussion about how the snail laid eggs out of habit, like chickens, even if there wasn't a boy around to fertilize them. My kids are in grade 5/6 though so we talk about human reproduction too, so snail reproduction wasn't too much of a shock for them.


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## NickAu (Sep 28, 2015)

And with snails you can keep them in a basic bare bottom tank a few ornaments or driftwood, and a suitable HOB filter with sponge and media filter if you dont have plants lights are optional, easy to feed easy to clean and they will breed if it gets real cold in winter you will need a heater.

Cover all but the front of the tank in black background add a small light and yellow snails look spectacular and they have interesting patterns on their foot.


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## jeaninel (Aug 24, 2007)

Convict cichlids are very easy to breed and have very interesting parental behavior. You could easily do a pair in a 20 gallon. Here's my female.


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## torileeann11 (Dec 17, 2015)

You could most likely buy a very pregnant molly or platy from your LPS. Be sure to get a 2 way breeder for her, so she doesn't eat all of her fry. Also, try to think of what to do with your fish when the project is over. Most LPS will take fish back, I know we do at my store.


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## myztic01 (Jan 4, 2016)

thank you for all the replies and awesome ideas! I've decided to go with guppies and I've spoken with a few of the parents who are willing to take some of the fry when old enough. I have a 20 gallon heated tank with a filter and a whole bunch of décor!! today in class we went online and I let the kids pick the tank accessories . we did a vote out of either guppies or mollys and guppies won!!


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## torileeann11 (Dec 17, 2015)

Wish I had teachers as cool as you!


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