Tatia gyrina spawned!

[bekateen]

August came late, but Christmas came early... Finally, after three months, most of the species I collected or bought in Iquitos in August landed in California. Of course, wild caught fish are prone to mortality, so I'm told that the local students and managers at ARCOF worked to replace some of the fish that died between my stay and shipping. I can't thank them enough.

What I just got home with are:

• 2
  Tatia gyrina

Today... I stopped at a LFS in the Sacramento area (Lee's Feed & Western Wear in Shingle Springs, CA), where I found some "forgotten"

Tatia gyrina

... I call them forgotten because their tank wasn't labeled with them, and the store manager didn't know they had them! So I bought all they had (there were 5) to add to my current group (which has not yet spawned).

Hopefully everyone adapts to their new tanks.

I set the new

Tatia gyrina

aside to QT until I can add them to my other stock. I carefully examined them and discovered I have at at least 2 males and 1 female. The two smallest are either small females, or too small to sex (they definitely have unmodified anal fins, but IDK if they need to grow more). It would be wonderful if these are females, because otherwise my combined group will be very male heavy.

If the T. gyrina ever do anything, I'll start their own thread.

Arrived at work today to find eggs in a tank with

Tatia gyrina

and

Microglanis aff_iheringi

. I gathered over 60 eggs loose in the tank and there are more stuck to two spawning mops. These eggs have large transparent jelly coats, and resemble my eggs from

Trachelyichthys exilis

and from

Auchenipterichthys coracoideus

, so I think these are Tatia eggs.

I transferred all the loose eggs, along with both spawning mops, to a 5.5 gallon tank with a heater and airstone.

Hopefully they hatch!

Cheers, Eric

[Jools]

Nice one!

Cheers,


Jools

[Shane]

I am amazed the pims didn't gobble up the eggs.
-Shane

[bekateen]

Thanks Jools!

I am amazed the pims didn't gobble up the eggs.
-Shane

I found only one egg inside the egg catcher box, so yeah, like you I was surprised they survived this long. But who knows how many eggs were laid? Maybe a lot were eaten.

Cheers, Eric

[bekateen]

Dang. I arrived at work this morning to bad news. I searched the 5.5 gallon tank and saw no eggs. Neither did I see any hatchlings, although I didn't expect them to hatch so soon. But what I did find was one adult Tatia gyrina, who must have been hiding in one of the mops when I transferred the mops to the 5 gallon hatching tank. Either this adult ate all the eggs, which is quite possible, or the eggs dissolved overnight.

As I ponder the possibility of the latter, I recall what a difficult time I had hatching my Trachelyichthys exilis eggs (HERE). They seemed to be very sensitive, to exactly what I was never sure - water pH? Hardness? temperature? to being handled/moved? Are Tatia gyrina eggs similar?

Oh well, at least I know to look for eggs going forward. Next time, hopefully better success.

Cheers, Eric

[bekateen]

Managed to find another dozen or so eggs in the parents' tank later today. I think from yesterday. I placed them under a dissecting scope and I couldn't see any embryos inside. All the jelly coats were covered with detritus worms and protists of some kind (or kinds). In fact, several of the jelly coats appeared to be open and empty. I wonder if the eggs had already hatched, even yesterday when I found the first eggs, and all I was retrieving was a bunch of empty jelly coats left over? So I emptied the parents' tank of decorations and looked in the debris on the tank floor. I saw no fry. That said, as @Shane pointed out, I would be shocked to find out that any significant number of fry, especially free-swimming, could have escaped the jaws of the ravenous Microglanis (and the adult Tatia, for that matter).
https://youtube.com/shorts/PPSdViv8AA4?feature=share

Will deffo need to keep a closer eye on the tank for more eggs in future.

Cheers, Eric

[characinkid]

Hi Eric, I had exactly the same thing with my gyrina and they just "melted" away over the next couple of days. I figured that they were unfertilized eggs.
My gyrina spawned again with fertilized eggs about 4 months latter. The eggs were visibly different but they did not hatch sadly.
Let me know what happens with yours.

[bekateen]

Misery loves company!

I'll be sure to update. On the plus side, with no viable eggs left, I moved my tiny Amblydoras fry to the 5.5 gallon tank. No filter, just airstone and heater. They won't get stuck in a sponge. Hopefully this helps me reduce the losses of fry with that species.

Cheers,
Eric

[bekateen]

Today I caught the adult T. gyrina out of the 20 gallon tank they shared with about 22

Microglanis aff_iheringi

and I moved the T. gyrina to their own tank. It's a 10 gallon tank with little or no sand; it's decorated with some wood, a pot, a cave, some silky artificial leaves, and a live Pothos plant.

In all, I have 9 T. gyrina: two big females, one big male, 2 smaller females and 3 smaller males, and one small fish that might be female, but it's small enough that I'm not convinced it's matured yet.

One female has a very spotty pattern, almost like

Duringlanis perugiae

or

Tatia reticulata

.


Hopefully now in their own tank, they'll be successfully.

Cheers, Eric

[bekateen]

After moving the

Tatia gyrina

to their own 10 gallon tank, I finally got a second spawn. Eggs are scattered amongst the synthetic leaves on the tank floor. Best of all, I see yolky centers in these eggs, not just big jelly coats, so I hope some of these hatch. Fingers crossed!

Cheers, Eric

Tatia gyrina spawn!

[bekateen]

I siphoned out the eggs with a turkey baster and put them momentarily into a cup in order to clean away/remove live blackworms, dead frozen bloodworms, and other debris, and then I moved the eggs to a Fluval breeder box with an internal air stone (no water flow into/out of the box, so I can lower the water level below the outflow. That way, I don't need to mess with sponge blocks to guard the outflow).

Many eggs were recovered among the synthetic leaves but a lot were in the spawning mop. Recovering eggs from the mop was difficult and many of those eggs look bad - I suspect the process of removing the eggs from the mop, especially lifting the mop in the air, damaged the eggs. I estimate there are over 50 good eggs, and at least 30 bad eggs, not counting what I couldn't remove from the mop. My thought for next time is scoop the mop out of the tank in a watery container and place it directly into a larger hatching chamber like a 1 gallon tank.

Cheers, Eric

[bekateen]

Goofing around a bit with video from this morning... Turn that sound on!

Cheers, Eric

Tatia gyrina embryo

[characinkid]

Hi Eric,

Those look really good and "shaking it"!!! What do you plan to feed them?

I have had no problems betting my intermedia to breed and hatch the eggs, but real issues getting the young to eat and survive the first 10 days recently. Any tips on food/water changes/temp etc etc?

[bekateen]

Hi characinkid,

I thought they'd have hatched by now, but just one hour ago they were still wiggling in the eggs.

When they do hatch, I plan to start feeding with live microworms and pulverized dry foods.

They worked well for Amblydoras.

... I still haven't gotten my intermedia to breed yet.

Cheers, Eric

[bekateen]

Gyrina eggs hatched overnight. A 7-day incubation period. That's longer than I expected although considering that these eggs are in a HOB box that is not heated, their incubation temperature was closer to 74F than 78F.

Cheers, Eric