3rd Time Lucky !!

[fluvial]

I am breeding my female copper HM for the third time ....
the other times was with a blue VT male, and they spawned OK -
but the eggs were unfertilised

This time she is with a grey / red HM male who is about 6 mths old and alot more active than the VT, (he was LFS bought and probably quite old).

One thing that I have found works for me;
I place the male in a breeding tank and then immediately add the female
in a breeding trap. This gets the necessary attention and nest building going, and I then release her after only 4 hours together ....
This seems to cut down on the aggression between them.

He hasn't had time to establish a clear territory and the chasing and nipping appears to be kept to a minimum.
So far she has not suffered any "fin damage" from any of the spawnings .... which occurs either the same, or the next day each time. I don't feed them at all while in the breeding tank so they can concentrate on the task

Once the eggs are released and they have finished mating I remove the female and leave the male to get on with caring for the nest / eggs.

I have read online of one breeder who keeps the female seperated for days on end while feeding them both up in the same tank. I like to condition before placing them together and it seems to speed the process up. I also think it must be more natural, like in the wild, for them

What works best for you (or rather, your fish ) .....
the slow or the quick method ??

[DarkMoon17]

I prefer the fast method and conditioning them before introducing them. I usually wait until the male has at least begun building a nest, but not all males will build a nest before spawning. You just have to watch them and make sure they respond to one another correctly before releasing them.