Trying to restart Microsynodontis sp. (1) spawning

[bekateen]

I'm circling back to a fish I've kept for a few years and incidentally bred without even realizing it for weeks or months (HERE: Microsynodontis sp.(1) spawned). After a conversation with... dang, I can't recall whom (Eric Bodrock & Regina Spotti? Josh Cunningham? Rich Bireley?)..., I've decided to try a strategy used for some

Synodontis

. I took a transparent plastic cup and covered it with a grill of lighting egg crate under a layer of small pebbles. I covered the cup with a terra cotta pot, with a hole knocked out of the side. Now we wait. P.S., yeah, I need to clean the tank glass too.

[bekateen]

Follow-up on that last attempt. It was a failure for two reasons: the fish didn't spawn and also the apparatus was top heavy and fell over on itself. I fixed that latter issue but still the fish didn't use it.

So today I rummaged through the tank and removed that old structure and I removed the mops and many of the larger rocks, then I installed a larger version of the same structure.

This is a 15cm x 13cm x 9cm clear container. A couple of 1.9cm diameter pvc pipes are placed in the bottom to provide a gap then they are covered with the knitting canvas. Over the canvas is a pile of small (1.27 cm diameter) marbles and over the marbles is a weighted mop with the yarn mostly rising. Over all of it is a very large terra cotta pot, with a gap at its base allowing fish to slip under pot and into the yarn. Let's see if this gets them going.

As for the fish, I caught them all and I discovered I'm down from 14 fish in 2020 to 8 fish today with about an even mix of males and females. Attached is a photo of one of the males with a pretty clear view of his genital papilla. Also, the yellow color in the photo is representative of their color in life. You can also see it on some of the fish in the YouTube video below which I made at the same time; I was surprised to see that some don't have the yellow color, or at least not as much of it, instead being more tan color as seen in many photos on the web.

I've had these fish since 2017. I'm sad to have lost 6 (never found any bodies) but I'm glad I still have so many and healthy looking too.

Fingers crossed!

Cheers, Eric

Microsynodontis sp. (1) update 2025 February

[Heck]

Aren't synos hard to breed in captivity? Or is this a variety that breeds successfully?

I breed horses, and I'd love to breed my eupterus if I could figure out how. I probably don't have time to do it justice.

[bekateen]

These are Microsynodontis, not true Synodontis... but yeah I guess they're hard to breed because they bred only once for me (a surprise) but have never bred again.

Cheers, Eric

[Heck]

Any clue what made the one attempt successful?