Cocks become sexually mature at the age of 3-4 months. Spawning grounds preferably have a bottom area of at least 300 cm2. it is possible without soil, but it is necessary to take care of shelter for the female. A layer of water is desired 10-12 cm. Fresh water is needed for 3-4 days. It is recommended to put small floating plants (duckweed) on the surface, which the male can use to build a nest. Aeration in the aquarium is not needed, lighting is preferably muted. To get strong offspring, before planting on spawning, producers are variously fed live feed. The pair is seated, the male is placed first in the spawning aquarium, and after a couple of hours or the next day the female is seated. The temperature in the spawning aquarium is raised to 27-30 degrees. The male begins the construction of the nest almost immediately or the day after landing on spawning (stimulation may be necessary). In most cases, the nest is quite large built of saliva and air bubbles, but there may also be a liquid one that it will begin to build in the future.
Spawning occurs after 1-2 days (in some cases during the week). If cockerel spawning does not occur for a long time, spawning stimulation is necessary. During spawning, the male mouths the eggs and places them in the nest. Caviar and larvae are also cared for by the male. During this period, it must be well fed with moth or a well-washed tube. If the male shows strong aggression in relation to the female, then the fish should be seeded and tried again after 2-3 days, if the male's attitude has not changed, then he should plant a larger female. If it does not help, then they replace the male. During spawning, the female sweeps 100-250 eggs. The crossed female is removed from the spawning aquarium, leaving the eggs in the care of the male. Larvae appear depending on the temperature and water parameters after 20-60 hours. For better development of caviar, boiled water can be added to the spawning aquarium (the temperature of the poured water should be the same temperature as in the spawning aquarium). Larvae turn into fry after 3-5 days. After the appearance of fry, the male must be removed from the aquarium. The water level in the aquarium should be reduced to 5 cm. In case the spawning aquarium is small, the fry needs water aeration until they develop a labyrinth organ. Special attention should be paid to the feeding of fry. In the first days, as soon as the yolk sac of the fry settles, they begin to feed infusoria or egg yolk. An infusory for feeding fry must be prepared in advance. Depending on the development of fry at the age of 7-10 days, fry can be transferred to artemia, and later to a finely chopped tube. The feeding of fry with dry feed does not give such good results, the development of fry occurs more slowly.
All the above information about breeding is quite averaged, in the future each aquarist forms his own individual approach to breeding cocks, his own small nuances that allow him to grow large and healthy offspring. And they will familiarize you with this accumulated knowledge in the following articles.
Cockerel breeding - from water