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I am pretty sure my Phyllonemus have spawned. I just checked the tank. Two of my fish have paired off and are holed up in a flower pot. The female which is much larger has a very distended lower jaw. I will take photos and keep you all informed. Any advice from Sid will be appreciated.

Mark

Congratulations, Mark! I'll keep my fingers crossed.

Maybe you should pipe some romantic mood music into the tank?

Start up the brineshrimp hatchery!

the fry are quite picky and demand live food the first week or so; and if you add brineshrimp-larvae to the tank with the breeding parents, they will release the babies to allow them to feed.

don't forget to feed the parents; they will switch fry or eggs to allow each other to food as well.

it takes about 3 weeks for the fry to hatch and grow till they start to feed; after one week they just hatch; after 2 weeks their yolksac is quite big. after 3 weeks the fry starts to feed;
good parents will keep the fry longer than a month; 6 weeks is the max time I've had them keeping their babies.

once they release them for the last time, you'll find fry hiding in the corners of the tank, quite often near the surface. dense floating plants in that tank will save many fry!

the parents don't eat finally-released fry for the first day or so (instinct I gues), but after that, they might become snacks.

baby Phyllonemus NEED hiding places; empty shells in the sand do perfectly.
the first few weeks live bbs is needed, you can add dead cyclops or de-shelled eggs to those and gradually diminish the bbs and increase the dead food to weane them off live food.

I have been checking the fish since last week. When I left for work this morning the female was still holding. I just checked and neither fish is holding and no sight of the fry. I am very disappointed.

Mark

no worries!!

this is a fish with a very high developed specialized breeding care; about the highest level of parental care in the entire Siluriformes......it's very natural for such fish to use the "trial & error" method in learning how to breed.

any Discus- or Earth-eater-keeper can tell you that pairs need to synchronize their behaviour, and sometimes "waste" several breeding efforts before the first succes!

mine did exactly that

Thanks sid I feel much better now.

Mark

Has anyone in the U.S got fry from these fish yet?
Just curious as I have 10 fry that are about 30 days
old and have not heard of anyone else in the U.S with
F1 fry.

Squid,

Where did you get your F1 fry from? I do not know of anyone who is breeding them now. As you know so far my adults have eaten the spawn.

Mark

They are my own fry. The only thing that I did different
from sidguppy is feed the fry frozen Cyclopeeze instead of bbs.

I fed my last litter de-shelled artemia-eggs (dunno any US brands, but here that's Artemia-Quick), you know the orange-yellow powdery stuff.

they did fine, but grew a bit slower than on live BBS.
raised all 14 to sellable size, though. they're now 3cm or so. once they reached 1/2" I added cyclops, and pretty soon crumbled flake. now they accept almost anything.

the parents managed to swallow their last 2 nests, mind; so here it happens too.
probably too much hassle in the other breeding-tanks (it's in a rack), and the vibrations when catching and re-arranging tankfurniture likely stressed them too much.

I don't mind too much, because selling catfishes in dumb ol' NL can be a major drag, unless you breed L-numbers and give them away for nothing

Mine are in 50g tank already :). They look much happier there than in small Q-tank :). Phyllonemus started to eat almost anything at last :) I haven't got reasons to worry now :). If I could ask here your Lophios Sid are also so crazy after lights go off? They swim throught all tank :D especially near glass and go feeding after phyllonemus done never before :).
Well I like dumbness of selling catfishes :P hyhyhy you know why Sid :)). However it was really, really nice price for so many fish I would never buy in Poland :) thanks again :)).

Regards.

young Lophio's are quite active with lights off, but Phyllonemus can show similar behaviour; esp when they're ready for mating, but haven't matched yet!

I guess they just show the 'looking for a mate' behaviour.

once mated they get downright reclusive! Phyllonemus can and does really try your patience once mated in a tank of their own.
they show almost Auchenipterid-like behaviour, esp when they have eggs or fry.
I'm still baffled by the Japanese guy who took those pretty pics, mine are invisible, and cringe in the flashlight when breeding; really impossible to take pics then.

I wish you lived closer, as I would certainly buy some frys.
I actually never heard of this fish. I wonder if these can be kept with African cichlids?

Well, since it's from Lake Tanganyika.......that would be a fair assumption, yes.

but people use the name "African cichlids" for 99% to mean the most vicious species of Mbuna available on the planet

Then I'd say: NO.

with Tangs, or mellow Malawians like Placidochromis, Labidochromis, Protomelas, Aulonocara etc: a good match!
but Melanochromis or Metriaclima in high numbers might not be a good plan.