 Basics | ||||
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| Overview | The first spawn was on Saturday 10th of November 2012. The breeding group consisted of 2 males and 2 females. The smallest male was at least 100mm SL and the smallest female was at least 110mm SL. The individuals were obtained from Petsmart. | |||
| Feeding |
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| Water Parameters (at time of spawning) | ||||
| pH | 6.00 to 6.50 | |||
| Temperature | 24.0°C to 26.0°C | |||
| Current | Strong | |||
| Other Water Params | 50% water change two days before spawning. I use cold water from an outside garden hose to refill the tank. I think this drop in water temp simulates a rainfall event, and I believe that this, when coupled with several days of providing live Tubifex worms for food in the days preceding and following the water change, stimulates spawning. | |||
| Aquarium | ||||
| Dimensions | The aquarium dimensions were 762mm x 330mm x 533mm (30" x 13" x 21") all Length x Width x Height. | |||
| Furniture | Aquarium is an Aqueon Bowfront 36 gal aquarium, with a playground sand bottom, driftwood, and lots of live plants (swords, banana plants, chain swords, others). Our banjos LOVE burrowing in the sand! | |||
| Filtration | Aqueon QuietFlow 50 | |||
| Lighting | I use the Aqueon hood made for the bowfront aquarium, fitted with a 24" General Electric "wide spectrum Plant and Aquarium" fluorescent bulb from Home Depot. Light is controlled by a timer set to an 12hr Light: 12hr Dark cycle. | |||
| Heating | Aqueon submersible heater set to about 77 deg F. Water temperature drops significantly when I do the water change and then recovers over the next few hours. I think the temp drop is really critical to stimulate spawning. | |||
| Breeding | ||||
| Behaviour | Courtship started overnight with lights off, and continued into the next day after lights on (lights on at 6AM); breeding stopped within 15-20 minutes of lights on. When I'd inspect the tank in the morning, I would find the female and male resting on the sand, then the female would swim to the male and nudge him; he would then pursue her. The first few times they spawned, I would find eggs stuck to plants and to the glass (down near the level of the sand), so I assumed that the female was purposefully attaching the eggs like Corys do. Then early one morning, just after lights on, I was lucky enough to catch them in the act: The female approached the male (who was resting on the sand) and nudged him, then they both started swimming upward toward the water surface; she was slightly ahead of him as they swam. He started nudging or biting (I couldn’t tell) her on the side just behind her operculum, near her pectoral fins. She responded by bending into a sideways, upside-down U-shape, her body wrapped over the nose of the male, with her head slightly downward. They both continued to move upward, the male pushing the female up ahead of him, while he continued to nudge or bite her on the side. All of a sudden, she rotated her ventrum upward so that her vent pointed to the water surface and she explosively expelled about 100 eggs, like a volcano erupting. I suspect the male released his sperm at the same time. The eggs shot up a few inches towards the water surface, but then slowly sank back down to the bottom of the tank. As the eggs settled, they adhered to anything they touched - the aquarium glass, plants, driftwood, and even OTHER FISH (mom and dad included); many eggs landed on the sand and became coated in sand. After releasing the eggs, the female and male seemed to lose interest, and then within 5 minutes they had both burrowed back under the sand, staying there for the rest of the day. | |||
| Eggs | There were 100 light green eggs laid which were 1.5mm in diameter. | |||
| Time to hatch | 0 days Number: 50 Free swimming: 0 days | |||
| Segregation | Once eggs are laid, I remove all of the plants that have eggs from the tank and I transfer the plants to a plastic 2 gallon tank with a sandy bottom and an air stone (or sponge filter - but lately I've not used the sponge filter with eggs so that the eggs or new fry don't get sucked in and damaged) at room temperature. I've tried using a turkey baster to suck up the sand-coated eggs, but I'm not sure if those eggs survived. I think I only successfully recovered about half of the eggs. You can see an egg hatching (it is resting on a sponge filter when it hatches) here: https://youtu.be/IiNLWHraA5Y. Enjoy | |||
| Fry sizes | 7 days: 0mm 14 days: 0mm 21 days: 0mm | |||
| Juvenile sizes | 1 month: 0mm 3 months: 0mm 6 months: 0mm | |||
| 1 month |  | |||
| 6 months |  | |||
| Fry and juvenile feeding | I use a mortar and pestle to pulverize a mix of Aqueon color-enhancing fish flakes, New Life Spectrum Thera A+ 1 mm pellets, and a generic spirulina pellet; these are all mashed together to form an extremely fine dust. I feed the fry 2x day. As they grow larger, I make more of this same blend but I don't pulverize it so much, so the food is bite-size for the fry. After the fry have grown a little, I remove the air stone and add a sponge filter. Eventually, I give them live tubifex worms. | |||
