• 22.05. - 54 L tank : 25% waterchange, KH 2°, pH 6.8, 30° C.
  The BIO CO2 bottle started CO2 production tonight and pH moved slightly below 7.0
  After ordering O.S.I. micro food yesterday I ordered 1 L of Javamoss and will create a Javamoss garden in the breeding tank. If some fry will survive in the tank the moss shall give them shelter during the first critical days.
  I have a new plan how to arrange strobe lights to improve quality  of the Rainbowfish  photos. (my plan fits, look at the 2nd photo at the right side). The best time is during the morning because then the males show their most intensive colour.
  The male that looked quite aggressive the last 2 days will stay in the breeding tank because he changed his behaviour. Clever guy !
  I've read it several times but didin't believe it. It's better to keep I. werneri allone in a tank. The fish in the breeding tank look much better and eat better than the werneri in my show tank where they are in competition regarding food with 5 M. Praecox and 3 P. signifer. That's not really a lot of fish in a 240 L tank but I. werneri get definitely not as much to eat as they need to look really good and feel good. Maybe I modify my plan a little bit and put some adults into the outdoor tub....
• 22.05. - outdor tub
  I've added some Myriophyllum. Water temperature was al ittle bit higher this morning. The heater is working but there must be something wrong with the integrated thermostat.

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• 23.05. - 54 L tank : no waterchange, KH 2°, GH 5°, ph 6.8, 31° C.
  Nothing special happened today, all fish lare looking fine. I will  change water every 2nd day in the future. This morning I took the shots of my mating males that I've been wanting to take since a few days. You can find them below the couple shots on this page. They show indeed very deepcolour while mating. Hopefully the moss will arrive tomorrow so that I can redesign the tank a little bit. It's quite hot at the morning, I#ve to adjust the heater tomorrow to have maximum 30° C.

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• 24.05. - 54 L tank : 25% waterchange, KH 2°, GH 5°, pH 7.0, 30° C.
  The situation between the male I. werneri is definitely more relaxed now. Obviously it took some time to find their place in the new home. I haven't seen any eggs yet but I must say that I haven't searched the Javamoss to avoid additional stress. If they're destined for laying eggs....they will lay eggs ;-) The moss new hasn't arrived yet.
  
  P.S.: each day has 24 hours and.....now I found eggs in the moss in the evening. I removed wood with moss because I wanted to add soe dark red gravel and put some more plants in that I had cut from my heayily (too heavily) planted show tank. The plants are growing so well that I could create a heavily planted 80 cm tank all two weeks without buying a single plant.
  So I touched the moss and I had 4 eggs on my finger. I didn't go on searching and have put all the moss into a 40 cm (25L) tank. O.S.I. micro food will arrive tomorrow and a lot of new moss hopefully, too.
  I will keep the I. werneri also in the 54 L tank in the future. Therefore it will be heavily planted in the future, too. O.k. The challenge raising fry is starting exactly now.....
• 24.05. - outdoor tub - 25% waterchange, fertilizer
  I'll put two couples of Iriatherina werneri out of the show tank into the outdoor tub. I'm sure they're not feeling best among the Paecox and for breeding I think putting them into the breeding tank would be too much of a good thing for 54 L. I'm not sure yet if I will use mobs or just wait if some fry will raise in the tub.

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• 25.05. - 54 L tank : 25% waterchange, KH 2°, GH 5°, pH 7.0, 29° C.
  There's no moss in the tank any more so they started spawning between the Rotala this morning. I'm very confident that I will raise some fry because the adults feel very well and are obviously spawning each day now. Even the removement of the moss and putting in some gravel didn't actually irritate them.
• 25 L tank : 30% waterchange, KH 2° C., pH 7.0, 29° C.
  HURRAY !!!  Approx. 20 little fish in the tank which are 4-5 mm small. I will update this report later and probably take some photos if possible ;-) I'm busy right now ;-))))

  view original size

  O.S.I arrived just in time and my fry started eating well. Everything looks great so far. It's impossible to give them only as much food as they really need. A litlle spoon came with the micro food. Half of it would reach probably for one month:-) I'll try to find the right dose by using a toothpick. This is what I do when feeding cyclop eeze to the adults.

• outdoor tub
  Something quite stupid happened. I've put some swimming plants into the outdoor tub a few days ago. In that plants must have been some eggs of Tanichtys albonubes. This means I've some fry in the tub at the moment. When I saw the werneri eggs yesterday I've put the moss into the tub first. After two hours I changed my mind and put it into the 25 L tank. My current opinion is that I've some fry from two different specimen in the tub ;-))) So removing fry makes no sense. I just will wait what they will look like when they're about 7 or 8 mm big when the T. albonubes start shimmering and getting a glowing stripe..

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• 26.05. - 54 L tank : 25% waterchange, KH 3°, GH 5°, pH 6.5, 29° C.
  The moss arrived today and I'll tape it upon some lava stones. Next week some more moss will arrive, so it should be possible to raise some Triatherina werneri fry in this tank together with the adults. I'll give this method a try, too, because hopefully enough fry will raise in the 25 L tank and I don't need some hundreds of I. wernery (....well, actually ;-))
• 25 L tank : 50% waterchange, KH 3°, pH 7.0, 29° C.
  I counted about 50 little fish today. The're still very active and eat well. Seems that things are doing fine. I tried to take some more photos but that can drive you insane. Depth of field of my lens is about 2 or 3 mm and if fry doesn't swim exactly parallel to the lens exactly in the depth of field area, it's a 2 hours job to get one photo of reasonable quality.
  Until today the fry only swam directly below water surface. Now they started swimming also 10 cm below and are becoming more active.

My 10 days summary :

To get some fry was easier than I thought. I was told that I would need luck and perseverance which I can confirm. Although I write that it was easy (this time) I know that I surely had luck because I felt some eggs in the moss with my fingers and then put them into another tank. If I didn't touch the moss I never would have recognized some eggs. But the hardest step is still in front of me...bringing them through the first two weeks. And I had excellent support at Gunther's forum rainbowfish.info !! Thanks to everybody for some excellent advice, especially Adrian Tappin who supported me with excellent tips late at night (for him down under it was morning ;-) If you're looking for any kind of information about rainbowfish, visiting Adrian's website is a MUST !!

What have I done to get some fry ?

• Giving my breeders time in the 240 L heavily planted show tank to improve their bad condition from the dealer's tank (about 6 weeks)
• A tank for the I. werneri themselves, at least 54 L as a breeding tank
• A mix male / female of 1:2
• Feeding newly hatched brine shrimp and Cyclop eeze 4 times a day
• 25% waterchange daily
• KH 2°, pH 6.5 - 7.0, temperature 29°-30°
• Javamoss as a spawning substrat

I don't know if I had the same success if I would have done a waterchange only once a week or if  I wouldn't have increased temperatur, etc.....For me that doesn't matter. It worked the way I did it.