Help with some Regani's

[PikeLee]

I have a pair of Cr. Regani’s that I think are ready to spawn. The female’s belly is really red and the male is dark with a hint of fluorescent blue on the edges of his fins. The swim together in a 20g Long all day, just following each other.

I have multiple caves for them Upside down pot, coconut shell, driftwood, and PVC Piping. There’s a lot of Java moss in the tank along with 4 Platies that I use as dithers. Usually where ever the female goes, the male goes. Especially when the female goes into one of the caves.

I’ve been feeding them a mix of frozen brine shrimp, frozen mysis shrimp, frozen bloodworms, and some dried Ocean plankton once and a while. They eat 3 times a day. I played with the temperature starting at 79 degrees and currently have the tank to 85 right now.

This is has been going on for the past month. All they do is swim together, no displaying at all. Since the females belly is so red, I’m trying to figure out what I’m doing wrong over here. I’ve tried just about everything. I even introduced another pair of pikes in there to help form the bond. I removed the other pair since I didn’t really see it going anywhere.

I usually do 60% water changes with a mixture of RO and Tap Once or twice a week. I’m kind of lost over here.

I’m about to wheel a TV in front of the tank and start showing them some porn or something (Maybe a tape of Salmon spawning from discover channel would be better). Or maybe drop some Spanish fly in there.

Anyone have suggestions??? Only thing I can think of is live foods. I had some bad luck with the live blackworms, so I’m going to stay away from them. Does anyone think live foods would make a big difference?

Thanks in advance. I look forward to any responses as this is starting to bother me.

 

[PikeLee]

I forgot to mention that the Water conditions.

PH: 6.4
GH: 2
KH: 1

 

[tjudy]

Fishy porn! Why didn't I think of that!

Live foods are great for conditioning, but I have never seen a correlation beween feeding live foods and getting and trigering spawning. One ive food that the C. regani I had years ago absolutley LOVED was small ghost shrimp. I used to hand pick really small ones, then drop them in the tank when the lights were out. The next day I could sit and watch the pikes actively stalk the shrimp. Cool stuff.

I would try the following triggers in this order, a few days apart if any one does not work.

1) Increase temperature a couple degrees (not more than 3).
2) Do 30% cool water change into that warmer water.
3) Do a 30% cool water change with pure RO water. (I would try this at least three times three or four days apart.)
4) Add a target fish for the male to beat the crap out of... usually needs to be a cichlid.
5) Turn on the fishy porn tape...

 

[Z Man]

Pike Lee, I believe I have given you some info before. Anyway you seem to have everything in order. I did feed my original pair live blackworms without any problems. But I do like to take chances. I bred my first pair in early 1997 and you can read the article either at my site or on that of my friend Vinny Kutty (Mostly Cichlids). I always figure that they will breed when they are good and ready.

 

[PikeLee]

Tjudy,
On my way home yesterday I picked up some feeder guppies and fed it to them. I doubted it was going to actually do anything, but I figured, why not give it a shot.

Thanks for the list to go by. I already had done steps 1 and 2. As for 3, when you say add pure RO, do you mean just plain old RO w/o RO right? I actually did a 50% with Pure RO (no RO right), but since I don’t have a RO unit, I only did it once. And then I followed up a couple of days later with another 50% water change (PH6.6, GH1, KH1). I’ve been doing the 50% water changes maybe twice a week with the just mentioned, but still nothing. I just felt it was kind of weird that these fish that used to try to kill each other, are hanging out now, in breeding colors, but not doing anything.

I’m going to try step 4 again. But instead of using another pair of pikes (I don’t want any loss of my pikes ), I’m going to use some other cichlid. Hopefully that’ll work.

Z Man,
I read your article. Nice article by the way. You did help me out before, but that was for my Compressiceps. Unfortunately they died from dropsy. I’m thinking it had to do with the blackworms. That’s my reason for not wanting to deal with them anymore.

Well, I’m going to try what Tjudy stated with the Target Cichlid. Hopefully it works out, if not, I’ll just take care of them like I have been and hope for the best. I'll hold off on the Fishy Porn for now. :wink:

I’ll keep you guys posted. Thanks for the replies.

 

[tjudy]

I used to breed rainbow cichlids and blue acaras, and always had a few of different sizes around. I found that they made good target fish so long as they were smaller than the breeders. Neither teh rainbow nor the acara are very aggressive.