Amblydoras nauticus spawned

[bekateen]

This morning I collected the eggs that were laid over the weekend. It turns out there were two spawns, one which must have been laid Friday night (some of those eggs are already hatching) and another spawn that was probably laid Monday night or Tuesday night.

In total, I collected over 550 eggs and hatchlings (almost 200 of which fell out of the terra cotta plant, and the rest from the false floor).

Cheers,
Eric

[Doradid]

What a great and informative thread. Congrats on your success and for an ingenious egg collecting method.

Paul

[bekateen]

Thanks Paul. I'll be presenting about this at Fishtoberfest in Portland next month. If you're in Portland, maybe I'll see you there.

Cheers, Eric

[bekateen]

Been a while since I've seen fresh eggs, but came home from a 4-day road trip to find a lot of new eggs tonight. Won't harvest them for a couple of days.

Cheers, Eric

[bekateen]

On Monday (2 days ago), I collected these eggs and moved them to a hatching tray. They had already started hatching before I collected them. Today I realize that either the eggs are very drawn out in their hatching (which is not surprising, since other species are too), or that two different ages of eggs in the mix: As I mentioned, some of the eggs were already hatched Monday and other eggs still haven't hatched as of today.

Bonus though, there's now a new spawn in the parents' tank. I'll leave that alone until Friday and collect the eggs then, or maybe Saturday.''

• Spawn 05 December 2024
• Spawn 11 December 2024

Cheers, Eric

[bekateen]

Another spawn overnight last night, but once again most if not all the eggs are unfertilized.

Cheers, Eric

[bekateen]

With the rains lately, I think it's triggered a spawning surge among the Amblydoras nauticus. I had new spawns on 04 Feb, 07 Feb, and 09 Feb!

The second spawn is almost done hatching. I'll collect the eggs from the third spawn tomorrow.

Cheers, Eric

[bekateen]

Quick update on these. They continue to spawn about every week or two. I've got two tanks of grow-outs and new eggs yesterday needing collected.

Cheers, Eric

https://youtu.be/NOjuhmscdug

[Jools]

Thanks Eric. What size where the adults when they started spawning - just trying to work out something like "they spawn at 60% of SL".

Cheers, Jools

[bekateen]

Thanks Eric. What size where the adults when they started spawning - just trying to work out something like "they spawn at 60% of SL".

Cheers, Jools

Hi Jools,

According to my old records, I got them to the USA in 11/2022 and the first spawned in 3/2023. On the day of the first spawn, I recorded "smallest male 55mm SL and the smallest female 57mm SL" All four fish were about the same size, with females slightly larger than males, so even though these are the smallest two fish (out of four - 2M:2F), the other two fish were not significantly longer, maybe 6cm. They seem to be very slow growing fish, so I imagine they were about the same size when I received them in 11/2022; they just fattened out before spawning, really. That would make your percentage about 75% of max SL at my first spawn.

Just now, I grabbed two of the original adults fish at random (turned out to be 1M:1F) and both were 7cm SL give or take 2mm.

Cheers, Eric

[Jools]

Excellent, thank you. That matches what my gut tells me about these guys. One day I'll try growing out some other talking cats to try to see if that holds true more broadly.

Cheers,

Jools