Honey Blue Eyes!

[Crabby]

Hey all! I’ve been super busy so I haven’t been active on the forum, just lurking for a while, but I’ve got the time (and a great reason) for a post now.

Against all odds, I’ve managed to snag myself a group of 4 captive bred honey blue eyes (pseudomugil mellis), an endangered and very rare blue eye endemic to Australia (for those unaware). I’m picking them up locally once I get back from an overseas trip, so I’ll have another post once that’s all done, but I thought I’d set up this thread so I can ask questions, share findings (particularly for other breeders and aspiring breeders) and simply document my experiences with this fish. 

The group is 2m2f so I’ll start them off in a cycled 5 gallon, which at the moment is just scaped with sand and some inert natural rocks collected from a river bed, so I’ll be chucking in a bunch of plants and maybe an Indian almond leaf or two in order to give them a cosy little breeding environment. In terms of the actual breeding, I think I’ll be using a couple small mops on one side of the tank (one floating, one sitting), and pulling daily for a week or so, perhaps even just a few days the first time so I can work with a smaller group. I’ll be getting some brine shrimp eggs (what are your recommendations for cheapish eggs that are good quality and have a good hatching rate?) for both the parents and the fry, once the fry are large enough. What are your recommendations for a first food for the fry? So far I’ve still not succeeded once with an infusoria culture, despite following a variety of different methods. 

Obviously, I’ve been wondering about shrimp as well. Would they eat the eggs? If not, which species would be found in a similar region and would be compatible? It’d be fun to have a little bit of a biotype for these little fellas. If I get shrimp perhaps I could order from Dave at aquagreen and get some cool native plants while I’m at it.

The main thing I’m debating is whether to breed them in a tank or give them a go outdoors. Outdoors seems riskier but potentially more fruitful and a tad easier (because it’s natural), whereas the tank seems much much safer but I’m just not sure how easy it’ll be to get them breeding. Anyways, I’ll see how they go in the tank and reassess later on. I’ll be asking plenty of questions when I pick them up as well, so I think it’ll all work out. I’m very excited to be joining the captive breeding conservation effort for this beautiful fish, it’s honestly been a bit of a dream of mine ever since I heard of the species, and I’ll be pulling out all the stops to make sure this opportunity doesn’t go to waste. I look forward to sharing many exciting posts with these cute little honeys. 

Cheers, Crabs. 

[sdlTBfanUK]

I had to do a google search to see what those fish look like, they are quite different!

That all sounds very interesting and I look forward to hearing how it all goes (and hopefully some pictures), fingers crossed it all works out well.

I imagine most shrimp would eat the eggs if they come across them, unless you go for fan shrimp, if they are available where you are? If you are removing the eggs (mops) regularly enough though it should be worth trying other small shrimps.

[jayc]

Looking forward to those pics @Crabby

[Crabby]

On 7/13/2022 at 2:40 PM, jayc said:

Looking forward to those pics @Crabby

Me too! I’ve never seen any in person so I’m very excited.

On 7/10/2022 at 5:02 AM, sdlTBfanUK said:

 

I imagine most shrimp would eat the eggs if they come across them, unless you go for fan shrimp, if they are available where you are? If you are removing the eggs (mops) regularly enough though it should be worth trying other small shrimps.

The fish like low flow so I won’t be doing any fan shrimp (riffle shrimp in Aus). Thanks for the opinion on other shrimp, I guess I won’t do any for now.