How to get Farlowellas in the mood ;)

[Mol_PMB]

I managed a couple of nice pictures of my twiglets on their two favourite foods - see below.

In my experience, they love red bell pepper and they also love 'lollipops' made by dipping twigs in Repashy gel.

When the new lot of eggs hatch (they're still mostly looking viable) I'll try to wean them on to these foods once they're beyond the Chlorella/Spirulina powder stage. Fingers crossed!

[bekateen]

Neat photos! Good luck with the new eggs. I never would have imagined that peppers would be a good food.

Cheers, Eric

[Mol_PMB]

Thanks Eric,

Red peppers are very popular with all my 'veggie' Loricariidae, including the Otos, Hypoptopoma, Farlowella, Ancistrus, and even the L244s and L397s. I'm not sure if the L24 goes for them as well.
They also eat courgette, spinach, broccoli stalk etc but bell peppers are definitely favourite and get eaten right down to the skin in a couple of days, with red poo everywhere!

[bekateen]

It the pepper raw? Do you peel it?

[Mol_PMB]

Raw, with pith and seeds removed. Not peeled. Well washed though, and I try to get organic ones if I can.

[bekateen]

Thanks, I'll give it a try.

Cheers, Eric

[Mol_PMB]

After 48 hours in the tank, this is all that's left - basically just the skin. One of these was the twig cats, the other was the Otos.

[Mol_PMB]

Two days ago, one of the eggs I rescued from the tank hatched, rather prematurely. The little twiglet struggled to get out of the egg and despite wriggling frantically for an hour or so, it didn't make it.

This morning, the majority of the eggs are hatching. About 10-15 had got free of their eggs and were sucking on to the sides of the hatchery (one even suckered to my finger when I reached in to give them some sticks to sucker on to). Another 10 have their tails free of the egg but seem to be having the same problems in getting out of their eggs. I've left them to it while I go to work; it will be interesting to see if they manage it. Because the eggs were rescued from the main tank, they're not stuck to anything so the little guys end up trying to swim around wearing the egg like a helmet, but they can't get it off. I'm not sure what to do - I suspect they're too small and delicate for my ham-fisted fingers to help. Any ideas?

The remaining 15 eggs hadn't started to hatch when I left home.

[bekateen]

Sorry, can't help with the egg issue. But I wanted to say thank you for the red pepper suggestion. I picked up some at the local grocery tonight, and my juvenile albino BNs are all over it. Good luck with the Farlowellas.

[Mol_PMB]

A photo of the hatching twiglets. Terrible quality I'm afraid - just a snap with the phone before I left for work.
Hopefully by the time I get home, more of them will have worked their way free of the eggshells and I'll have a tidy-up.

Eric, I'm pleased to hear your BNs like the red pepper I believe it's quite nutrient-rich as well as being tasty.
Yellow and orange peppers go down quite well but they don't seem to like the green ones so much.
I've also tried chilli peppers which were popular too!

[Mol_PMB]

The answer to the egg issue is two pairs of fine-pointed tweezers and two very steady hands! I managed to pull the eggs apart from either side and the fry swam free.
It was stressful for all of us, hopefully they will get over it. I saved at least 10, think I lost a couple. There's another 10 or so that hatched on their own, and about 10 more unhatched eggs.
Pics later
Paul

[Mol_PMB]

Here are some pics of the new arrivals. About 25 are out of the eggs now, there are about 10 more unhatched eggs but I don't know how many are still viable.

[Mol_PMB]

The remaining eggs have either hatched or are clearly unviable, so I've had a clean-up and count. I think there are 30 twiglets in total.
As usual, they seem to show no interest in doing anything other than sucking the glass. I have started offering powdered chlorella and spirulina in case the earlier developers are ready for it.

[Mol_PMB]

Yesterday I had an idea. The tiny twiglets like suckering to the things in areas of high water flow. So could I get them to eat by putting a spinach leaf under the place where the water enters the breeder box? I put one in last night, and they seemed uninterested. But this morning, there are at least 12 of them on it (some on each side of the leaf)

I've also put some twigs (the wooden sort) a couple of stones and a little snippet of plant in there to give them a variety of things to rest on. I'm feeding chlorella and spirulina powder too, and one of the twigs I've put in has been dipped in Repashy.

[Karsten S.]

Hi,

Another 10 have their tails free of the egg but seem to be having the same problems in getting out of their eggs. ...wearing the egg like a helmet, but they can't get it off. I'm not sure what to do - I suspect they're too small and delicate for my ham-fisted fingers to help. Any ideas?

quite often I have the same problem with cory fry and I use a air tube to suck them in and to release them again by blowing into the tube with (high) pressure. With Farlowella fry I have never tested, up to now I always let the dads do their job...
The eggs might be too big for a standard air tube ?!

Cheers,

[Mol_PMB]

Thanks Karsten, that's a good tip and I'll try it if I have the same problem in future. The Farlowella eggs do fit in an airline tube; I used one to siphon out a couple of fungussed ones.

I've previously always let Dad do the job, but the pair of them made such a mess of it this time that I had to intervene.

I've attached a couple more pics of the fry from today (2 days old)

[Mol_PMB]

Today I sold my juvenile

Dicrossus filamentosus

, which were in the same tank as my

Farlowella vittata

. This entailed taking out all the decor and lots of swearing with two nets. At the same time, I took out the cichlid parents and transferred them to a separate tank, leaving just the 3 adult and 2 juvenile Farlowellas in the tank, and the two-week old twiglets in their nursery box.

I went out for a few hours to deliver the cichlids and trade them for something else. When I got back, both species were spawning! (now in separate tanks). After last time's threesome and fight, the twig cats have happily reverted to their previous habit of just a M/F pair doing the spawning, though the other male is watching closely.

[bekateen]

... This entailed taking out all the decor and lots of swearing with two nets.

Interesting technique. How do you use the swearing? And do you swear better with two nets than one?

Cheers

P.S., on a more sincere note, congrats, and you have some cute little eggs on that leaf.

[Mol_PMB]

I've just had a quick measure up:
Adult male - 170mm TL, 145mm SL (I've had the adults for 15 months now, they were about 100mm SL when I got them)
Juvenile - 100mm TL, 80mm SL (7 months old)
Fry - 22mm TL, 19mm SL (23 days old)

And the ones still in their eggs (laid 4 days ago) are probably about 5mm by now, they usually hatch at 9-10mm.

[Mol_PMB]

Here are my two juvenile twiglets on the glass together this evening, posing nicely. I've taken this photo to emphasise their noses.
The one on the left has a slim, smooth nose, which means she's a female. The male on the right has a slightly broader nose, and you can just make out the start of some odontodes (hairs) on the sides of the nose.

The female is about 95mm TL and the male 105mm TL. Both seem to be eating well and growing measurably week by week.

I've still got another 11 from the more recent brood, about 25mm long. Of the most recent batch of 51 eggs, sadly none lasted long enough to hatch.

[bekateen]

Nice. Early signs of gender are very useful. Do these develop any genital differences? If so, are they apparent yet?

[Mol_PMB]

Good point - I'll have a closer look at that. Here's a recent photo of the parents, with a very gravid female between two males. There seems to be quite a difference in that region.

[Mol_PMB]

OMG - My babies have bred!

I haven't put much on this thread recently because there was sad news - after I moved and separated my

farlowella vittata

family to various tanks, 'Dad' jumped (I later found his dessicated body) and 'Mum' is looking poorly and hiding at the back (I wondered if she might have been a goner too, but she's still alive).

There are three juveniles still alive - a male and a female from one litter that are now 100mm SL and 9 months old (born Feb 2015). The third is from a more recent litter and only 50mm SL, not yet sexable. They're in a tank with their poorly mother. I must confess it's a pretty poor survival rate from about 10 spawns and about 100 fry hatched.

Yesterday I saw the two larger juveniles snuggling up together in a corner of the tank, just like their parents did in preparation for mating. But surely a 100mm, 9-month old fish is too young? Just the equivalent of a snog behind the bike sheds? The juvenile female had been looking very tubby recently though.

Today the young male is guarding a small clutch of eggs, which look viable, and the young female is less tubby.
Now, I didn't actually see the spawn, so it's just possible that their poorly Mum was the female, but it was certainly the two juveniles cosying up together in that location immediately beforehand, with Mum hiding in the opposite corner of the tank.

Farlowella vittata, 9 months old and 100mm SL, looking after his first spawn,

So, I think my two little twiglets have bred

[pleconut]

Re the fry survival rates i read on a l397 breeding log leaving some slightly older fry with the new as the older fry teach the younger to eat it may help. If not for the twiglet's then maybe when the L397s start.

[bekateen]

Re the fry survival rates i read on a l397 breeding log leaving some slightly older fry with the new as the older fry teach the younger to eat it may help.

Can you provide a link to this source?

Thanks,
Eric

[pleconut]

Hi the link to it is
http://www.plecoplanet.com./forum/showthread.php?t=6351 lady had to reduce her batch - too may babies. We might both be very busy paul and myself looking after the fry and his lucky male L397 looking after the eggs. But Paul has it spot on with his breeding quadrant in light of the link obviously in my research i often find helpful links ect and other info for the L397s i will keep you posted as you're planning on getting some as well.

[bekateen]

Hi Teresa,

I tried the link but it didn't work; apparently it had a small typographical error in it. So I fixed it and here it is:
http://www.plecoplanet.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6351.

Thanks for the link. It's a nice read. And did you notice that about half-way down the page are photos of a couple of the fry (all grown up) from those spawns, and one of these is the feature photo on the L397 CLOG page? Nice!

Cheers,
Eric

P.S., apologies to the OP, as we're getting off the subject here.

[Mol_PMB]

Thanks and no worries
Another thing I recall reading (but can't remember where) is that fish which eat predominantly vegetable matter need to build up a population of certain bacteria in their gut. They can seed the bacterial population by eating poo from an older fish.
So it might be that they're not just being shown how to eat by the older fish, but also being given the bacteria needed to digest the food.
Sorry I can't find the reference for this.

[bekateen]

Another thing I recall reading (but can't remember where) is that fish which eat predominantly vegetable matter need to build up a population of certain bacteria in their gut. They can seed the bacterial population by eating poo from an older fish.
So it might be that they're not just being shown how to eat by the older fish, but also being given the bacteria needed to digest the food.
Sorry I can't find the reference for this.

Is this what you read? Nitrogen fixing bacteria in the gut of Panaque nigrolineatus

Cheers, Eric

[Mol_PMB]

Thanks Eric