Breeding syndosis petricola

[HelloFresh]

Hello All
I am wondering what is the Best way to breed syndosis petricola? I have seen many ways of breeding them between using a cichlid as a host, just letting them do it naturally and then the marble thing So which one of these work best?
if it's using a cichlid host then whats the best types of cichlids to be the host for them?

[bekateen]

Hi HelloFresh,

Welcome to PlanetCatfish!

As to your question, have you searched the forum here for past experiences? If not, check out the old posts listed here: search.php?keywords=petricola+spawned&fid%5B0%5D=8

Good luck!
Eric

[HelloFresh]

Thank you but I have looked at that and on my own, I have done research and im just trying to figure out what I should use to breed mine. I have been thinking about doing something diy and suck them out of the marble thing or just doing it manually and putting them into Breeding bin.

[kvnbyl]

i had them breed for me about 10 years ago and i still have the same colony, they are just really old and have turned almost completely to a dark brown that's almost black. they spawned regularly until maybe 5 years ago. they are in a 150 gallon community tank and at this point they have stopped spawning and i still have 5 from the original colony of 7 (they were full grown when i acquired them originally, maybe a year old.) i gave away many of the fry away, better to someone i knew than to a pet store where i would have no say over how they were treated. i use about half an inch of black sand in my tanks; easier on barbels than gravel.
they spawned originally in a 30 gallon long and they were alone in the cave.
the ph here is almost neutral, the water soft 20 - 30 mg/l of cc. i kept them at 75 degrees, and fed with frozen blood worms, brine shrimp and dry food.
there was no where near the selection of food there is today, it was mostly Tetra Min but always a good variety.
i put a big cave in the tank and they spawned in a group in the cave, i didn't realize it until i moved it one day and there they were.
the parents did not bother the fry but i pulled them out and raised them separately.
later spawns i left in the tank, there were maybe 10-20 fish in each spawn.
i think what i am trying to say here is i don't think it's difficult, IMHO if you keep them in good conditions nature will take of itself. i did large water changes (still do ) twice a week 65-75% and i think that always helps. i used canister filters and i clean them regularly, i don't see the point of spending big money on filters and then cleaning them once a year. that mulm and broken down driftwood and so on is still in the water column even if it's in a filter and tends to make the ph drift down.
again, keep them in good clean water, feed them on the best food you can afford and nature will take care of itself

[HelloFresh]

I usually use high-quality food for all of my fish. Mine is a colony of 6 and I can tell I definitely have a good female to male ratio. I didn't have any "caves" in there but there was something stuck to the wall that hid them from anything that you could call a cave so today I went to the store and bought some containers and marbles(i washed them off very well before-hand) and I pocked holes in the bottom of the one inside so if they breed the eggs would fall in then I put the marbles in there and put a cave like thing above it they now spend all their time in there. I currently have a 5-gallon homemade canister filter with lava rocks running on it. (I totally agree with you on the filter thing) I like to do lots of water changes on all my tanks. They are currently 3-4 inches long besides 1 straggler that's very small. They are currently in a grow out tank and I've been looking at a 55 gallon with some cichlids in it that I might buy and put them in but if that falls through im just going to get like a 75-100 gallon tank.