Trying to breed needlenose fish

[flamingo]

WELL, I think I may try breeding needlenose fish!

If you already don't know they are my favorite fish HANDS DOWN. Sadly they are poorly misunderstood and there is little info about them on the web. Breeding habits are also in the dark, well i'm going to try and change that.

SO far I have kept about 4 needlenoses counting my newest one I got today.
Until today though I only had one, and i'm guessing it's a male. See, most fish get brightly colored during spawning season, derr. WEll, my needlenose was getting pink blotches on its head on it's inside of it's beak was turning a light pink color, so I went straight to the "i'm guessing it's a male thing". Sadly when i went to go to google and all again no one really knew how to tell or provide any info on breeding other than groups of 4 or more usually result in spawning and the eggs are poisonous.A lot help there! lol

To start off this is the first needlenose:





WILL BE UPDATED WHEN I HAVE MORE TIME LOL

[Fishboy93]

These natives or did you buy them?

[flamingo]

I bought them, living in wisconsin i'm not even CLOSE to where they live. The closest place I know of them being is in florida where they are actually considered a junk fish. They will actually pay kids to go out and kill them. Lmao forgot you were in florida though, you ever seen them around where you live? When I lived (well long vacation) in florida for about 4 months we used to see them everyonce in a while. We heard more stories of them then anything. I guess most people hate all members of the family belonidae lol , or most. Not only is Xenentodon Cancila considered a pest but it's silvery ( and much bigger) cousin that lives in saltwater is also treated badly.

I'm going to try my hand at breeding them, of course i'll record EVERYTHING. THere is little info on them out there so I hope I can help out a bit.

[flamingo]

Ok so I've had that one for like around year now, every couple of weeks it's "bredding colors" show up. Lately though they stay for about 2-3 weeks without fading at all so I said heck with it and got another one. WEll they new one was drip acclimated first then placed in the tank where it proceeded to stay down by the bottom like most fish do when first bought. My original one went up and I literally thought it was going to bite it in half. BUT, here's the deal: Needlenoses are some of the strangest fish out there. Either they get aggressive and eat everything or they get picked on. Well mine will try to intimidate a fish at first, if it hides and swims away it thinks it's food, if it sits there and isn't scared it thinks "friend". THat's what it did to the new one. It went up to the new one, instead of swimming away it backed up and started to school with it. yay!

SO now they've been following eachother around for a while and the males colors are gorgeous! They aren't the normal pink anymore, but a beat red, I thought it's mouth was bleeding it was so red.

The last time I checked on them they were supposedly courting. I've only found one site out there confirming actual living babies so I have no clue and it's just a hunch. THe go back and forth and get VERY territorial. They'll do this for hours on end making, what it seems like, random gestures. The thing that really made me think courting is when they shake. The practically get real close and shake the bodies sideways by eachother. It's pretty neat.

BTW, they started courting after I raised the sG levels by a little over a couple of days. I'll raise it some more then start doing big freshwater water changes to try and trigger them into mating. Hopefully I can set up my 55, move all the cichlids and bichirs out, and have the 30 to the needlenoses so they aren't stressed while they are trying to court.

This is the only pic I have of the new needlenose so far:

[flamingo]

Ok, well I had to do major cleaning on the tank because all the fish were going psycho not being fed for a while and killed my ctenopoma, which was left in the tank for however many days when I wasn't there and my bichirs were gnawing on it. So they were moved into a big 5 gallon bucket. I thought this would be the perfect time to take a picture of the males breeding "spots". The picture is kinda crappy and I edited the color of the fish so the red colors stand out...you'll see soon enough lol:

[Fishboy93]

If those are SW i see them all the time when i go to the keys...

[flamingo]

Naw, these are freshwater. They are cousins to the large silvery ones though. When my cousin went to mexico he saw a bunch of the silver ones and even got a few pics..but it was like 4 feet long lol and dead!


UPDATE:

They are kinda iffy at this point to tell whether or not they are going to breed, but the breeding colors are gettign really dark again so who knows!
They may not because of the stress they went through during moving them to the bucket and back. THe newer addition jumped out like 2 inches away from the tank ( NEVER CATCH THEM WITH A NET UNLESS IT"S HUGE AND COVERED!!!) and it took me 5 minutes to catch it, it slapped me a few times and almost bit me. Then as I was putting the bigger male needlenose in it jumped straight up and its beak went straight forwad into the hood and it fell in the water..not fun.

[flamingo]

Well, while I was gone one needlenose jumped out and my dad put it back in, but it died! There goes that for now!

[board to wake]

i had a needle nose! ah awesome fish!
had him till he was about 8 inchs. and then my blue gill gulped him down. weird i kno.

well anywho. i will be getting another! woot

[flamingo]

lol that's nice to hear lmao.

I may be getting some more later, they are by far my favorite fish and i'd like to try breeding once more.