Male agassizii not fertilizing...

[FazTeAoMar]

Hello there.

First time posting here so forgive me if i´m not posting in the right sub-forum.

Here goes: I have a pair of of Apistogramma agassizii double red, very beautiful and very healthy.I have them over 2 months.

My tank is very planted and it will become even more. I had other layout but i dismantled the tank to build this new layout. The other layout was very planted too. In the old layout, the pair already showed signs of breeding, with the male courting the female and the female responding, turning to a bright yellow and laying the eggs in an anubia leaf. This happened three times in the old layout. And three times the male didn´t fertilized the eggs. The female, desperate, started to chasing the male to make him fertilize the eggs. But the male always run away. Only onte time, he actually had over the nest and become there one/two hours with the female, probably to fertiliz the eggs, but that still didn´t occur.

In this new layout, it is the second time the female lays eggs, even now, the eggs are still there but the male still reffuses to fertilize them. In this layout, the female choose a piece of driftwood to lay eggs. The chasing of the male by the female continues in order to fertiize the eggs...

The tank is:

- 60*30*30 ( cm) with 53 L
- very planted;
- pH at about 7.2
- kH is 6
-temperature is 26/27 ºc
- no tank mates, they are alone
- food is: flakes, freezed red larvae, dried up larvae, JBL grana ( granulate)

Can anyone guess what is going on with the male? Should i get another male? Should i sepparate them for some days and rejoin them again?

Best regards,

André

 

[aspen]

a cool water change might get him going.


rick

 

[fishgeek]

Thats strange rick has more experience than me and i would have though perhaps slightly increasing the temp and adding some peat water or such to drop the pH
otherwise just wait

hardness dosen't look high enough to be a problem
they may just be young fish

andrew

 

[FazTeAoMar]

Here goes some pics of them:

Maybe they are still too young. Anyway, as rick suggested, i´ve made a water change of 30% today. Don´t know if its enough though... I´ve looked to the ceilling of the nest and noticed, as the other times, that are lesser eggs, due to female eating them. Can you see by this pics if they are already adults? At least they show wonderful colours and are very healthy. I´m willing to buy some peat and make the pH drop to 6.8 or so, even if it darkens the water.

regards,

André

 

[fishgeek]

very nice pictures, although i dont think they are to be posted here, check the forum rules somewhere
dont worry someone will move them

male to me looks a bit on the young side and as you say well coloured and healthy looking fish

andrew

 

[Apistt_ed]

Here goes some pics of them:

Maybe they are still too young. Anyway, as rick suggested, i´ve made a water change of 30% today. Don´t know if its enough though... I´ve looked to the ceilling of the nest and noticed, as the other times, that are lesser eggs, due to female eating them. Can you see by this pics if they are already adults? At least they show wonderful colours and are very healthy. I´m willing to buy some peat and make the pH drop to 6.8 or so, even if it darkens the water.

regards,

André

You've got a beautiful agassizii pair! I haven't seen a female with that much color on her caudal tail in a long time. Well, the male looks like he's not that young but may not be experienced enough but the female is obviously "old" enough, from your previous spawns. That's what I suspect. My aggies did the same thing for about a good 4 months before it all clicked and the male finally did his thing. The female can be a little too eager and drive the male away when he's just too inexperienced. I'd say as long as the female is laying eggs, then you're at least going in the right direction. As soon as the male becomes more experienced and mature, he'll get the drive to spawn and do it correctly. I've always believed in aggies being left alone till they got the picture when it came to spawning. I'd say keep up with the water changes and whatever else it was you were doing, in time it'll happen. If possible and if you'd like to, go to a gardening store and look "seedling starters" made from 100% peat. They are what I use in my gardens to start seedlings and are basically small compact tightly balled peat about the size of a golf ball. Make sure they are FERTILIZER FREE. I've found these little things to be far easier than the traditional methods of cheese cloth, stockings, etc. Just pop them in and imbed them into your gravel. I'll try to see if I can get the actual name of the peat for you. and if I can find it, I'll post it here for you. best regards and good luck!

john

 

[FazTeAoMar]

very nice pictures, although i dont think they are to be posted here, check the forum rules somewhere
dont worry someone will move them

male to me looks a bit on the young side and as you say well coloured and healthy looking fish

andrew

You are right. I only wanted to show you if you could get any conclusion about the age of this aggies. Thanks.

You've got a beautiful agassizii pair! I haven't seen a female with that much color on her caudal tail in a long time. Well, the male looks like he's not that young but may not be experienced enough but the female is obviously "old" enough, from your previous spawns. That's what I suspect. My aggies did the same thing for about a good 4 months before it all clicked and the male finally did his thing. The female can be a little too eager and drive the male away when he's just too inexperienced. I'd say as long as the female is laying eggs, then you're at least going in the right direction. As soon as the male becomes more experienced and mature, he'll get the drive to spawn and do it correctly. I've always believed in aggies being left alone till they got the picture when it came to spawning. I'd say keep up with the water changes and whatever else it was you were doing, in time it'll happen. If possible and if you'd like to, go to a gardening store and look "seedling starters" made from 100% peat. They are what I use in my gardens to start seedlings and are basically small compact tightly balled peat about the size of a golf ball. Make sure they are FERTILIZER FREE. I've found these little things to be far easier than the traditional methods of cheese cloth, stockings, etc. Just pop them in and imbed them into your gravel. I'll try to see if I can get the actual name of the peat for you. and if I can find it, I'll post it here for you. best regards and good luck!

john

Tank you for your complimments John. I really love this fishes and i treat them in that way. Yes it really can be unexperience by the males side. The female really has an interesting behaviour: the nest is in one side of the tank and the male is in the opposite side. So the female gets out of the nest, swims directly to the male and gives some " love bites" as i call it to make the male active and guides him towards the nest. When they are both close to the nest, she assumes a submission position next to him as if she is saying " please come inside and fertilize the eggs ". The male then starts to run off again and she goes inside the nest. And this carries on for hours since she has layed the eggs. I hoppe that soon the male picks up more experience as you say and " finally do his thing". As for the peat, i´ll be searching for it in a store near me, altough if you could tell me the name of it, i would be very thankful. Thanks for your comments. They helped me a lot, along as other members sugestions.

regards,

André

 

[depthc]

Peat moss, you should be able to find it at your petstore but i advise against it. They over charge there in most places. Go to your local hardware store and pick up some sphagnum moss which is the same thing.

Andrew

 

[cdawson]

Sounds to me like he is fertilizing them, but it's possible he's infertile. Double red were in-bred for their colours like most colourful aquarium strains. Some breeders actually use chemicals to make sure their fish are infertile, reason #1 I always use fish where I know who bred them or I know they're wild.

She's defending the nest as if the eggs had been already fertilized, she wouldn't be guarding the eggs so valiantly if they hadn't been fertilized yet.
Aggies have been bred in a higher ph than that before, so it can't be that the sperm aren't making it through the egg shell.

 

[scott]

i've had the same thing happen countless times and as previous posters said, they will probably get it right eventually. nobody tells them how to reproduce, the must figure it out themselves. if the eggs still aren't hatching after a few more tries maybe you could try another male. good luck.

Andrew,
raising the temp slightly does help. but if you first do a water change with cool water (preferably r/o) it simulates the start of the rainy season, which is when some species spawn. at least i believe that's the reason.

 

[FazTeAoMar]

Sounds to me like he is fertilizing them, but it's possible he's infertile. Double red were in-bred for their colours like most colourful aquarium strains. Some breeders actually use chemicals to make sure their fish are infertile, reason #1 I always use fish where I know who bred them or I know they're wild.

She's defending the nest as if the eggs had been already fertilized, she wouldn't be guarding the eggs so valiantly if they hadn't been fertilized yet.
Aggies have been bred in a higher ph than that before, so it can't be that the sperm aren't making it through the egg shell.

I don´t think that is the problem here. The male, since the female layed the eggs, doesn´t come even near tha nest by his will. It has to be the female to guide him to the nest to procceed with the fertilization, and even so, the male doesn´t enters the nest and after a few seconds it runs off again. She isn´t guarding the nest from him, she promotes the " assault" of the nest by the male in order to do his thing!

i've had the same thing happen countless times and as previous posters said, they will probably get it right eventually. nobody tells them how to reproduce, the must figure it out themselves. if the eggs still aren't hatching after a few more tries maybe you could try another male. good luck.

Andrew,
raising the temp slightly does help. but if you first do a water change with cool water (preferably r/o) it simulates the start of the rainy season, which is when some species spawn. at least i believe that's the reason.

Yes i think you are right. Before the spawning occurred, i have made a water change with cold water of 10% and the female spawned later that evening. The chasing of the male by the female continues, altough there aren´t almost any eggs left. By tomorrow or so, she will return to her natural colours and pacific behaviour and then i´ll know the male assumes again the dominant position, beginning the cycle over again.

Rgards,

André

 

[scott]

i recently read in romer's cichlid atlas that there are some species of apisto(aggies not being one of them) that the females spawning cave opening is so small that the male cannot fit in and must release his sperm outside and the water current created by the female going in and out carries the sperm to the eggs. studies have been done and show that the ferilization ratio is the same whether or not the male has direct contact with the eggs. my point is that i don't think that the male needs to come into direct contact with the eggs to fertilize them. i could be wrong but it did read about it.

 

[cdawson]

That is correct, alot of amazon species spawn when the rains start.

 

[fishgeek]

is it not in the flood plains and shallow waters that get warm fom the sumer sun that theses fish spawn?
i hvae certainly employed the cold water change with my cory's to induce spawning- though i also keep them at cooler temperatures

am i missing something or have i just misunderstood

andrew

 

[depthc]

Its the temperature drop from the rain that induces the fish to spawn once its been warm. Just a tiny misunderstanding. Has the cool water waterchange help in breeding your corys?

 

[cdawson]

I spawn all my amazon species this way, every two and a half weeks I change 20 percent with water that's 6 degrees cooler and they spawn the very next day. Right after the change they(all species) immediately show courting behaviour.

 

[scott]

do you only change the water every 2 and 1/2 weeks or do you just use cooler water then and do changes with equal temp water in between. it's just that the longest i ever go is a week and i usually do changes 2-3 times a week. i'm just curious to know what works for you.

 

[asimkhatri]

even I have also same problem My aggasszi already layed eggs 4 times but white eggs disapeard within a night male was not fertlizing them