Fathead Minnows

By Tom Bell
From  Vol. 2, No. 9 The Newsletter of The Tri-State Aquarium Society, August 2000
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I would like to follow up on our club visit to Charleston, when we visited the water testing laboratory, CT&E Environmental Services.

As you will recall, we were hosted by Ken Holliday and Aaron Hunting. After their tour and explanation of their fish room, they were kind enough to give the club members baby fish from their collection. I was a recipient of about two dozen of the Fathead Minnows (Pimephales promelas), a fish native to West Virginia. I am pleased to say they have now achieved breeding size and I have been able to raise young from the baby fish which they gave us.

You might recall that there were several requirements necessary for them to successfully breed:
- The first was at least 12 - 14 hours of light, they normally spawn during the longer days of July.
- The second is at least 70 degrees of temperature.
- I also provided half of a clay flower pot for breeding purposes.

The dominant male stakes out a territory within the flower pot and guards it from the other males in the tank. The female lays her eggs on the inside roof of the flower pot and there the male fertilizes the eggs. The male then guards the eggs.
I have only been successful when I removed the flower pot and put it in a separate tank with a small stream of air bubbles to keep the water moving slightly.
I feed the adult fish my pulverized fish chow, which I feed to all my other species of fish as well.
I feed green water to the newly hatched fry until they reach a size that they can utilize the pulverized food. I also place Java Moss in the hatchery for the baby fish to graze and eat the infusoria.

An observation about a side benefit of raising them; in the tanks where they are housed, all of the snails have disappeared. A very nice side benefit. I have started to move them to other tanks to see if the same thing happens.