What are you breeding?

[MRLIMPET]

Picked up some Apistogramma agassizi at LFS & BAS sponsor Pacific Aquarium about a month ago. Since then they've colored up nicely & appear to be the Flamenco morph. As I write this the female is guarding some wrigglers in the leaf litter. Keeping my fingers crossed. I really love this species - they've been on my wish list since I was eleven!

[elcue]

As I’m typing this I have a pair of Asian rummynose (Sawbwa resplendens), and a pair of Celestial pearl danios spawning in an unheated 20g – 68degrees. Got them from Rachel at the nano mtg. Eventually I’ll pull them, and arrange a better set up. The female Betta ocellata that I picked up at the last auction is plumping up nicely, hopefully w/ eggs. The male is also fattening up – starting to look like a tadpole. Maybe there will be fry for next season’s meetings

[dsuperman]

Asian rummynose are beautiful and so are those cpds.Good luck. I'm concentrating on a couple of guppy strains lately, plus Skiffia Multipunctatus and Paleatus cories.

[elcue]

Thank you, maybe the rummies will spawn me a school. They are pretty, with the pale blue body and bright red/orange nose and tail tips. I cut/pasted Skiffia Multipunctatus into google, and the first link is a youtube video by you - I'm assuming that's you. Nice videos. Saw the one of your 19 year old Silver dollars; did they ever spawn?

[dsuperman]

They have had some life up to this point,those dollars. Nope,just about every time i do a water change they go at it,never seen an egg!

[elcue]

Rats, don’t ya hate when that happens. How often do you do the water changes?
The Betta occelata that I got at the last mtg spawned. He held the eggs for two days – at least now I’m sure that I have a pair, that’s always a good start…

[dsuperman]

All my tanks get a 30-50% water change every 10 days. Thank you python. No thanks to the city which has raised our water bills by a million percent in 20 years,seems like it..

Do you have to separate the sexes while raising those occelata?

[elcue]

[quote=Do you have to separate the sexes while raising those occelata?[/QUOTE]


I don’t know, maybe I should. Do you mean that she might have been bothering him? They’re in w/ a lot of smaragdina. They do need their own space, too much going on in that tank. They had staked out a little territory, but once they spawned, the other fish were in his face. Not much he can do w/ a mouth full of eggs; he might have been pestered too much. Or not, who knows. Maybe I’ll try to segregate him from all the other fish. But my catching him might cause him to eat the eggs. She’s starting to plump up so there will be other chances. I’ll just try different approaches, shuffle some fish around…

[dsuperman]

That isn't what i meant but is possible the female was harassing him. I thought you had fry,was wondering if one has to separate males/females like with splendens. Good luck playing "musical fish", i know the feeling.

[elcue]

Now you put a bug in my head. Hopefully I’ll have fry, I think I read that they're 5mm at release, couldn’t find anything on how many he can hold. We’ll see how it goes… I’ve had splendens spawn; I didn’t separate them. What’s the reasoning for separating the sexes? I just don’t have the space. They had spawned in a 5 gal Rubbermaid, and remained there until I would bring them to the club in bags of 20+. Swirling bags of red finnage, pretty funny, people would do double takes. You never see bettas like that. I think they were too crowded to become territorial/spawn, and if they did stop swimming to fight, the filter would throw them around. It worked; for me, don’t know happy they were. The smaragdina are all together, too. Funny, it never occurred to me to separate them. They’re not easy to tell apart, we were trying to pull pairs the other day– it’s easy until the net hits the water, and then they all look alike…

[dsuperman]

When i raised a splendens spawn of couple of years ago i took the males out as soon as they started flaring and put them in about 12 separate pretzel tubs,that was fun,lol.I didn't want them ripping finnage. .Sounds like you don't have that problem with the smaragdina, and thats a good thing for spaces sake lol.

[elcue]

So far so good w/ the smaragdina, although the ocellata has done some minor damage- but they're learning to keep their distance for him. Found info on the ocellata brood size, 100 was observed w/ 7mm fry. Last two pages of this paper, interesting...

http://www.hollandbettashow.com/bett...eretal2004.pdf

[dsuperman]

That is interesting. Sounds like soon you will be up to your rubbermaids in occelata!

[MRLIMPET]

I've had male smaragdina that grew up together get along very well until the day that they don't, when all hell breaks loose. This was in a 10g grow out tank; perhaps in a roomier tank with broken lines of sight they'd be more tolerant of each other.

One of my "female" Macropodus ocellatus is now tending a nest full of fry! Sexing them is very tricky when they're young. The male is very tolerant of the female, & even lets her help round up stray fry. The little ones should become free swimming tomorrow, when I'll remove the parents & begin feeding smelly infusoria.

[elcue]

So far there haven't been any casualties w/the smaragdina. The males will circle each other, flaring their fins, but another fish will get in the way and then it's over. I did move the occelata to another tank, maybe now he'll hold the eggs.

Here's a pic of some males, there are more on my profile page

[dsuperman]

Those look like happy, robust fish in your album. Nice work.

[elcue]

Thank you. Some are quite the little fatties, the female microsynodontis sp1 are full of eggs. Hopefully this time I'll save some. Last time they released the eggs I missed it - don't know if they spawned or just released/feasted on the eggs.

I can't figure out the posting of pics on this thing. Sometimes I can see the pic in the thread w/out signing on, and then sometimes I can't. Can you see the pic w/out signing on?

[dsuperman]

I can see it without signing on, i'm using "use.com" as my host. I can't figure out how to get a photo on at all.

[elcue]

It's frustrating right? I believe I was told to copy /paste the url of the picture, into the "Insert Image" pop up box , when posting a reply. I used the url for the picture from my profile page, since I don't have an account w/ any of the photo sites. I think I copied the url before I started the reply, as I couldn't toggle back and forth w/out losing the msg. And it didn't help that sometimes I saw the pic and sometimes I didn't , so thanks for answering! I think I'll try another!

[elcue]

Female Microsynodontis full of eggs. Let's think positive thoughts!

[dsuperman]

They look like they are ready to burst! This time i couldn't see the photo without loggin in. I always feel theres a joke/cartoon in there somewhere about "upside down catfish. Think i tried once, it didn't go over. Ha. Good luck.
http://www.use.com/dsupermans_Fish_c...2052344023?p=8

[elcue]

They get scary big for small fish, I doubt the females are 1.5in long.

Cute cartoons

[elcue]

The Betta ocellata that I picked up at the May auction released fry. I had removed the female about six days after spawning, since she was plumping up w/ eggs, and I didn't want to risk him dumping his charges to spawn again. He held them about 9-10 days at 84 degrees. They readily take brine, no idea how many... the rocks in the photo - gravel.

[dsuperman]

Sweet, at that temp is that the norm for holding {9-10 days]? Nice photo,whats the first food for those?

[elcue]

Not sure on the temp/holding, and I could be off a day. The chart that I had posted had 10 days holding, but doesn’t indicate temperatures. I had read 12 – 15 somewhere on the internet, but w/ temps in the high 70*s. From what I’ve read, my tank can get 10* warmer than ideal for the fish (it’s on a sunny windowsill). Fortunately fish don’t read (could be they just don’t have access to the internet) and they spawned anyway! I’m sure at lower temps they would have metabolized slower, and he would have held them longer. Next month …. Meanwhile, he just consumed a quarter, of a hikari bloodworm cube, poor boy’s hungry. When I noticed the fry, I fed the tank microworms and baby brine, but I'm sure they found plenty to eat prior to that, the tank has an airstone, plants, and lots of mulm. Think I’ll add a sponge…

[dsuperman]

True, fish don't always follow the rules, sounds like yours are off to a great start!

[elcue]

Caught one of the fry for a photo...

[dsuperman]

That giant mass of duckweed might consume that fry, watch out!

[elcue]

I know, by the end of the week that duckweed could very easily be ten duckweed

[dsuperman]

When someone says "free duckweed !" i tell them Duckweed is never free.