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Egglayers have many methods of laying their eggs

Egg scatters usually scatter eggs around weeds, or onto gravel. The male chases the female during spawning, and the eggs are fertilized as they fall. Spawning runs can be spectacular to watch since the fish race around the tank and ignore anything else, including food. Examples of egg scatters are tetras, barbs, rasboras, and danios.

Substrate spawners are a little choosier about where they put the eggs. They lay eggs that attach to some sort of substrate. Plants, rocks, wood, and even the aquarium glass may be chosen as a spawning site. Both fish participate in the egg laying, with the male fertilizing the eggs as the female lays them. Examples of substrate spawners are many catfish, some cichlids, and killifish.

Bubblenest builders lay their eggs in a nest of bubbles blown by the male fish. The bubbles are held together with saliva and look like foam. They tend to attract infusoria that the babies can eat, and keep the eggs at the surface of the water, where they are well-oxygenated. The eggs are laid a few at a time, and carefully placed in the nest where they hatch. Examples of bubblenest builders are bettas and gouramis.

Mouthbrooders actually keep their eggs in their mouths until the eggs hatch. The eggs are again laid a few at a time, and once the male fertilizes them, the parent doing the mouthbrooding gathers them up in his/her mouth. That parent eats sparingly, if at all, until the baby fish are released. Examples of mouthbrooders are male arrowanas and female cichlids.

Marine fish also lay eggs. Some are substrate spawners, but many lay pelagic eggs that float in the plankton. There the eggs hatch into a larval stage, and the larvae float freely and eat tiny plankton until they grow into fish. See the Moe reference for a more complete description.

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