Around November I started to see the development of the bristles on the nose of the male. In December he had chosen his favorite cave and I could always find him there. It wasn't long after that that I spotted some heavy gravid females and I wondered if they were already getting to their sexual mature age. My question was answered just weeks later. I was most amazed at their small breeding size, the male is 6cm TL and the females a little smaller at around 5-5,5cm TL. In the German Lwelse database it says these fish get up to 14cm, so the small breeding size surprised me!
The young male back October 2016
Two months later
One of the females
After a short trapping, I spotted a female in the cave with the male a day before, there was quite a large clutch of eggs stuck to the top of the cave.
In the two days following some more females has obviously spawned in the cave too because the egg clutch had "grown" twice as big
Around hatching day he started throwing some of the eggs out of his cave so I collected them all and put them safely in an egg tumbler to let them hatch. The eggs are tiny at around 3mm.
Just a few hours later they started hatching. The eggs on the left needed a day more to develop and hatch.
All hatched.
The fry 2-3 days old and doing fine.
Updates will continue in the coming days.
Thank you.