Chemical alarm cue (CAC) plays an important role in the fish predator-prey interactions and is closely related to species fitness. In recent years, it has become a focus of behavioral ecology, conservation biology, and restoration ecology. Epidermal-damage-released chemical cues (DCAC) are typically released during a predation event and, therefore, serve as a reliable indicator of immediate predation risk. The sensitive avoidance of predation risk sources allows prey to increase their probability of survival by detecting and avoiding potential predators but is costly in terms of reduced foraging or mating opportunities if the emerging chemical cues do not represent an actual threat. Noteworthily, a small number of previous studies have demonstrated that some species of spawning Ostariophysians seasonally lose their alarm pheromone cells and alarm responses to DCAC. Moreover, the correlation between the intensity of chemical alarm responses and reproductive physiological inputs (e.g., gonadosomatic index, GSI) remains largely unexplored. In view of the great energy demand for both breeding inputs and chemical alarm responses during breeding in fish, there may be trade-offs between the two based on energy supply and demand. In this study, four freshwater experimental fishes during reproductive phase IV with significant differences in breeding inputs and breeding strategies were used as the experimental models. They were rose bitterling Rhodeus ocellatus (an egg-laying fish) with very low breeding input, zebrafish Danio rerio (an egg-laying fish) with a bit high breeding input, guppy Poecilia reticulata (a live-bearing fish) with abit high reproductive input, and mollie Poecilia latipinna (a live-bearing fish) with very high reproductive input. The changes in behavioral parameters of the four experimental fishes in response to DCAC were measured using EthoVision XT 9.0 video tracking software. The correlations between the intensity of chemical alarm responses and GSI at different DCAC concentrations in the four experimental fishes were determined. The results showed that the changes in most of the behavioral parameters (i.e., bottom-dwelling time, motionless time, swimming distance, body fill, average speed during the movement and highly mobile time) in the four experimental fishes were significantly affected by DCAC (P<0.05). No significant correlation was found between GSI and changes in the chemical alarm behaviors (P>0.05), except that GSI showed a significantly negative correlation with the change in bottom-dwelling time in the species (i.e., P. latipinna) with the highest breeding input at the high concentration of DCAC (P<0.05). This study answers the long-standing question of whether the chemical alarm communication in breeding fish is weakened or even absent. The findings demonstrated that all four fish species with different breeding inputs during reproductive phase IV had significant behavioral responses to DCAC and suggested that the GSI was not related to the extent of chemical alarm responses in most fish species.