- Messages
- 619
- Location
- Cheshire..UK
Firstly i would like to thank Mark Breeze (Microman) for supplying me with these fish, if it was not for Mark bringing them to the Uk and successfully breeding them then i would have been waiting even longer for this spawning.
I have admired this fish in books and in pictures online for around five years but have never seen them about because they are not a common species. Mark had a few left from his breeding and was kind enough to sell me one of the last pairs from his tank because he knew i was going to try and spawn them and hopefully keep them in the Uk scene.
They settled quickly and within a week or so i had my first batch of eggs..The female laid under a piece of bogwood right at the front of the tank and the eggs were visable, They lasted three days before they disapeared..This was a common occurence for six spawnings,the female seemed to become jittery and always ate the spawn..Age may have had something to do with it, both fish are aprox 6-7 months when i received them.
Last week the female obviously had eggs in a cave and after four days she was still there, i was desperate for fry and becoming impatient for them to succeed, i decided to remove this batch to ensure myself some fry. A plastic container was sterilised and sunk into the tank, the coconut shell which made the spawning cave was slowly lifted into the container and the whole lot floated in the tank.
I counted 126 hatched larvae with were still attached to the roof of the cave by a sticky membrane, the force of moving them detatched a few which continued their development lying on the container floor. They were freeswimming after nine days at 25-26c and fed straight away on microworm and newly hatched baby brine shrimp(San fransisco strain..Much smaller!!).
They have been freeswimming for three days now and although a few have perished the majority are doing fine and feeding well. Water changes are performed daily by tipping the old water out slowly and refilling with tank water from the adults tank..
I have admired this fish in books and in pictures online for around five years but have never seen them about because they are not a common species. Mark had a few left from his breeding and was kind enough to sell me one of the last pairs from his tank because he knew i was going to try and spawn them and hopefully keep them in the Uk scene.
They settled quickly and within a week or so i had my first batch of eggs..The female laid under a piece of bogwood right at the front of the tank and the eggs were visable, They lasted three days before they disapeared..This was a common occurence for six spawnings,the female seemed to become jittery and always ate the spawn..Age may have had something to do with it, both fish are aprox 6-7 months when i received them.
Last week the female obviously had eggs in a cave and after four days she was still there, i was desperate for fry and becoming impatient for them to succeed, i decided to remove this batch to ensure myself some fry. A plastic container was sterilised and sunk into the tank, the coconut shell which made the spawning cave was slowly lifted into the container and the whole lot floated in the tank.
I counted 126 hatched larvae with were still attached to the roof of the cave by a sticky membrane, the force of moving them detatched a few which continued their development lying on the container floor. They were freeswimming after nine days at 25-26c and fed straight away on microworm and newly hatched baby brine shrimp(San fransisco strain..Much smaller!!).
They have been freeswimming for three days now and although a few have perished the majority are doing fine and feeding well. Water changes are performed daily by tipping the old water out slowly and refilling with tank water from the adults tank..
