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My Common Whiptails, Rineloricaria eigenmanni I believe, spawned a few days ago



They spawned in the large tube from a tank siphon tube that measured 1.75 x 8 inches covered with a piece of slate, some oak leaves, and rounded stones on either side.

I've read Shane's breeding article a few times. That's where I found the info about the tube dimensions - thanks, Shane! I've read in Shane's article that they are challenging to raise. Has anyone successfully raised these fry besides Shane? I'm trying to give them the best possible conditions to ensure a breeding success. TIA!

I raised, and I'm raising again, fry from fishes from Uruguay - thus another Rhineloricaria.

Frankly, I do not find them hard to raise, HOWEVER, if the tank is not free of other fishg, the fry will not survive their first night - I think they are lookes as food.

The guarding male however may remain in the tank, he takes good care of the eggs, and, more importantly, after they hatxh, he will remain on the spot for a few days. I was able to remouve him by hand

Thanks for your reply. This is a species tank, only other members are another male and 2 females. Do whiptails predate their own young? Should these be removed before the eggs hatch then?

Yes

last year I happened to get very good results with the first clutch - I separated a Cichlid female, carrying fry, and later I found out a Rhineloricaria male with eggs was separated as well. The fish did not bother each other, so I let it this way.

After a while (I think 10 days) the catfish eggs hatched, obviously the male was no longer needed, and thus I remouved him. I did not expect the fry to survive, but they did. The cichlid was - after all - still carrying larvae, thus hardly any thread to them.

The second clutch went wrong - as I did not separate the father, or remouve the others (8)

The male is now on his own in a tank. The eggs are beginning to eye up, so I expect them to hatch in a few days. What did you feed your fry once they hatched?

Congratulations on the spawns. While I have yet to breed and raise any species of Rhinoloricaria, I suspect the fry would do well on a diet of earthworm sticks and Spirulina sticks sold by http://www.kensfish.com and http://www.aquaticeco.com. These sticks turn into a soft mush soon after wetting and I have not found a Loricaridae fry or adults yet that does not take to them well. They are far more nutritious than blanched garden vegetables which are 99% water. The quality of the first foods has a great deal of influence on how many fry will reach maturity. Can't expect foods like blanched vegetables to stick to their bones. There is a distributor for these foods in the UK but unfortunately i do not remember the companies name. I do know many European aquarists who took up Heckel Discus keeping sought my advice and were able to obtain these stick foods. Heckel Discus eat much more bottom detritus than the other two wild discus species.

Thanks for your reply, apistomaster! I have a supply of both earthworm sticks and spirulina sticks, and veggie sticks as well. I've been feeding these to the colony along with frozen bloodworms and frozen blackworms to help with egg production.

I'm based in the US, so can easily obtain Ken's foods and sinking sticks from http://bayleesfishees.com/catalog/. I like to keep a wide variety of foods for all my fish. I'm glad to know that I have a supply of food for these fry and won't have to scramble once they hatch.

At tank check this morning, there was some good news, but mostly bad.... The good news was that all the eggs had hatched and the male was outside the tube. The bad news is that almost all the fry were dead! I found about a dozen live ones and put them in a baby net, so that's also good news. I checked tank parameters: ammonia anid nitrites 0, nitrates 5-10, temp perhaps a bit cool at 76-77 degrees. Is this why the fry didn't survive? I did about a 15% WC to drop the nitrates a bit.

Any help in understanding what happened is gratefully appreciated. At least I know the colony will spawn, and I hope next time has better results.