for the past few weeks things have been a little crazy in our fishroom..we have 3 pairs of bushynose plecos...one pair are long fins..male is brown and female is albino..another pair is the same except they are standard fins..the other pair are both albino..the albino pair are about a year and a half old and we have been trying to get them to breed for the past 9 months..nothing..then about 4 or 5 weeks ago they finally spawned..as soon as the male let the fry out of the cave they spawned again..and as soon as those fry were released they spawned again...this batch should be out of the cave in about 4 or 5 days at most..the day after the albino pair spawned , the longfin pair spawned..and then yesterday the other pair spawned...
now....while all of this is going on our red lizard cats started spawning...so far 3 times..but the male has eaten the eggs each time...last night he was in the cave with another female getting ready to spawn again...
and then there are the Sturisomatichthys Leightoni...Dwarf Royal Farlowellas..
we have 1 male and 4 females...we used to have them in a 10 gallon tank and they would spawn every now and then but have never been able to keep the fry alive..not hard to get them to spawn...almost impossible to keep fry alive..but lately they have been going crazy...one spawn after the other..they always lay the eggs on the front glass of their 20 high..as soon as one clutch hatches there is another within a day or two..the females just wait in line for their turn...the day before yesterday 1 clutch started hatching..when a few of them hatched there was another clutch of fresh eggs...and last night the wife and i watched another female come and they started to lay another clutch...we took a bunch of pics and some video so i'll try to see if i can get them posted soon..and as we were watching the pair spawn i was also looking at the other females...2 of them are already filing with eggs....actually i am a bit worried that these 4 females are going to work that poor lonely male to death...we made some changes in the tank and have formulated a new fry food and it seems to be working so far...the first batch of fry are almost 3 weeks old and are a bit more active than they used to be and they are also growing pretty fast...we will know for sure if this works in a few weeks...
these are very rarely seen fish in the hobby..i find them to be fascinating and watching them spawn is amazing....
so why all of the crazy spawning activity ?? what triggers fish to spawn ?? well...most of it has to do with the weather...when there is a change in the barometric pressure it triggers spawning...another trigger comes from the fishkeeper....for almost all catfish and plecos , i have found that when they are kept warm and well fed with the proper foods they will fatten up will soon be primed for breeding...doing a 30-50% water change and dropping the tank temp about 8-10 degrees can send them into a spawning frenzy...
a big mistake that i often see is that people will try to breed their fish without having the proper foods for the adults as well as not having the proper foods for the fry..fry need much different nutrition than adults... fry need foods that are higher in protein and fats....most of the commercial food manufacturers do not really make a formula that provides the optimum nutrition for new fry...and therein lies the difference in fast growth and good health along with low mortality rates in fry..
oh yeah...the odessa barbs are also going nuts and are all colored up...and the angels just keep laying eggs...and the brichardi keep spawning..probably 150 fry in the tank now...
egads.....i need a bigger fishroom..
now....while all of this is going on our red lizard cats started spawning...so far 3 times..but the male has eaten the eggs each time...last night he was in the cave with another female getting ready to spawn again...
and then there are the Sturisomatichthys Leightoni...Dwarf Royal Farlowellas..
we have 1 male and 4 females...we used to have them in a 10 gallon tank and they would spawn every now and then but have never been able to keep the fry alive..not hard to get them to spawn...almost impossible to keep fry alive..but lately they have been going crazy...one spawn after the other..they always lay the eggs on the front glass of their 20 high..as soon as one clutch hatches there is another within a day or two..the females just wait in line for their turn...the day before yesterday 1 clutch started hatching..when a few of them hatched there was another clutch of fresh eggs...and last night the wife and i watched another female come and they started to lay another clutch...we took a bunch of pics and some video so i'll try to see if i can get them posted soon..and as we were watching the pair spawn i was also looking at the other females...2 of them are already filing with eggs....actually i am a bit worried that these 4 females are going to work that poor lonely male to death...we made some changes in the tank and have formulated a new fry food and it seems to be working so far...the first batch of fry are almost 3 weeks old and are a bit more active than they used to be and they are also growing pretty fast...we will know for sure if this works in a few weeks...
these are very rarely seen fish in the hobby..i find them to be fascinating and watching them spawn is amazing....
so why all of the crazy spawning activity ?? what triggers fish to spawn ?? well...most of it has to do with the weather...when there is a change in the barometric pressure it triggers spawning...another trigger comes from the fishkeeper....for almost all catfish and plecos , i have found that when they are kept warm and well fed with the proper foods they will fatten up will soon be primed for breeding...doing a 30-50% water change and dropping the tank temp about 8-10 degrees can send them into a spawning frenzy...
a big mistake that i often see is that people will try to breed their fish without having the proper foods for the adults as well as not having the proper foods for the fry..fry need much different nutrition than adults... fry need foods that are higher in protein and fats....most of the commercial food manufacturers do not really make a formula that provides the optimum nutrition for new fry...and therein lies the difference in fast growth and good health along with low mortality rates in fry..
oh yeah...the odessa barbs are also going nuts and are all colored up...and the angels just keep laying eggs...and the brichardi keep spawning..probably 150 fry in the tank now...
egads.....i need a bigger fishroom..