Rineloricaria eigenmanni male with eggs. Next steps?
Posted: 03 Jan 2009, 16:19
I've got a whole bunch of preliminary explanation, then a couple of questions:
So I picked up a breeding trio of R. eignemanni lin mid November. I put them in a 20 long. Play sand bottom 1 1/4" thick, locally collected driftwood and oak leaves (boiled). Some round, black river pebbles and a hand size hunk of granite to weight the wood down. Filtered with an emperor 400 with rite size pads cut to fit the baskets. 75 watt heater keeping the tank at ~80ºF. 2 white PVC tubes 1 1/2 x ~7", one covered on top with Java Moss, the other w/ Java fern. Initial stock included 6 gold tetras (Hemmigrammus rodwayi) and 6 Bandit cories (C. metae). Water was just on the sour side of neutral (~6.
. My water is high carbonate (KH~14), low hardness (GH~2) - weird. Great for Rainbowfish, but I digress. Also, I have a mess o' pond and ramshorn snails in there that hitchiked in on the plants and have been noshing and waxing myriad on the leftovers.
Water changes have been 30% weekly (biweekly at least) with water straight from the tap, temp matched by feel, then the whole tank treated with Novaqua+ and Amquel+ (Pond concentrate - full normal dose of each for 20 gallons).
Food has been spriulina tablets (daily), shrimp pellets or small spectrum pellets and a bit of flake (tetramin or spectrum - 3-5 times weekly), frozen or freeze dried bloodworms, frozen spirulina brine, frozen mysis, frozen daphnia (2-3 times weekly), live blackworms and brine (once weekly - overfeed the balckworms so they stay in the substrate for several days). Fast on Sunday.
I had been noticing that the 2 females were getting a bit plump. Like a frog just starting to inflate its throat sack prior to a croak.
The week before Christmas, I rearranged the tank a bit, and set the tubes so I could sight down them better. Apparently this put one of the tubes in exactly the right place so that the filter outflow fires straight down it.
So for Christmas, my whiptails giftem me with a batch of dark green 3mm eggs in the tube with the current.
I removed the tetras to another tank. In stirring things up to do this (gold tetras are alomst as hard to net as loaches), I noticed that my cories had also been getting busy - saw one cory fry that couldn't have been more than a couple of weeks old handing out in the leaf litter.
I have switched my water change protocol since then. I am still going weekly, but I am using water that has been sitting treated for a week in a 15 gallon rubbermaid tub at room temp (65ºF). I change out about 7 gallons (The other half goes into my C. arcuatus tank). This drops the temp by probably 5º for a couple of hours after the change.
So, what to do now? I am guessing that I should be looking for fry on or about 6 or 8 January.
I am pondering removing the male in his tube to a 10 gallon tank set directly under the 20. I would fill this tank 70% with this week's change water and put in a well matured Hydro-sponge 1, then top with some of the aged water. I'd stick in a 50 watt heater set to 78º. Then just wait for the fry, then remove the male back to the main tank with a nice slice of zucchini for his munching pleasure. I would start doing a daily or every other day water change once the fry appear- about a gallon or 2 from the 10, refill from the 20, top of the 20 from the tub.
Is that a good plan? Should I wait until I'm closer to fry? Should I wait for the fry to hatch and move them individually? Do I need to worry about the females laying another clutch immediately and him not having time to bulk back up (They're starting to plump again)? Should I stick him in one of my cory breeding taks for a week and let him feed back up?
Also, on fry feeding - I am not ready to commit to a brine hatchery. While I have a plan that will allow me to set one up on a 24 hour cycle (4 containers kept at 84º, and rotated to harvest at 0800 and 2000 daily), I am not going to be ready to implement it until sometime in February or March. In the meantime, I was thinking Cyclopeze supplemented with frozen rotifers to start, shifting to frozen baby brine, and a partial spirulina tablet daily.
Alternately, I could do romaine lettuce leaves blanched and kept in a half gallon jar of aquarium water with some filter squeezings.
So have I got this more or less right?
Thanks for your time.
JT
So I picked up a breeding trio of R. eignemanni lin mid November. I put them in a 20 long. Play sand bottom 1 1/4" thick, locally collected driftwood and oak leaves (boiled). Some round, black river pebbles and a hand size hunk of granite to weight the wood down. Filtered with an emperor 400 with rite size pads cut to fit the baskets. 75 watt heater keeping the tank at ~80ºF. 2 white PVC tubes 1 1/2 x ~7", one covered on top with Java Moss, the other w/ Java fern. Initial stock included 6 gold tetras (Hemmigrammus rodwayi) and 6 Bandit cories (C. metae). Water was just on the sour side of neutral (~6.
. My water is high carbonate (KH~14), low hardness (GH~2) - weird. Great for Rainbowfish, but I digress. Also, I have a mess o' pond and ramshorn snails in there that hitchiked in on the plants and have been noshing and waxing myriad on the leftovers.Water changes have been 30% weekly (biweekly at least) with water straight from the tap, temp matched by feel, then the whole tank treated with Novaqua+ and Amquel+ (Pond concentrate - full normal dose of each for 20 gallons).
Food has been spriulina tablets (daily), shrimp pellets or small spectrum pellets and a bit of flake (tetramin or spectrum - 3-5 times weekly), frozen or freeze dried bloodworms, frozen spirulina brine, frozen mysis, frozen daphnia (2-3 times weekly), live blackworms and brine (once weekly - overfeed the balckworms so they stay in the substrate for several days). Fast on Sunday.
I had been noticing that the 2 females were getting a bit plump. Like a frog just starting to inflate its throat sack prior to a croak.
The week before Christmas, I rearranged the tank a bit, and set the tubes so I could sight down them better. Apparently this put one of the tubes in exactly the right place so that the filter outflow fires straight down it.
So for Christmas, my whiptails giftem me with a batch of dark green 3mm eggs in the tube with the current.
I removed the tetras to another tank. In stirring things up to do this (gold tetras are alomst as hard to net as loaches), I noticed that my cories had also been getting busy - saw one cory fry that couldn't have been more than a couple of weeks old handing out in the leaf litter.
I have switched my water change protocol since then. I am still going weekly, but I am using water that has been sitting treated for a week in a 15 gallon rubbermaid tub at room temp (65ºF). I change out about 7 gallons (The other half goes into my C. arcuatus tank). This drops the temp by probably 5º for a couple of hours after the change.
So, what to do now? I am guessing that I should be looking for fry on or about 6 or 8 January.
I am pondering removing the male in his tube to a 10 gallon tank set directly under the 20. I would fill this tank 70% with this week's change water and put in a well matured Hydro-sponge 1, then top with some of the aged water. I'd stick in a 50 watt heater set to 78º. Then just wait for the fry, then remove the male back to the main tank with a nice slice of zucchini for his munching pleasure. I would start doing a daily or every other day water change once the fry appear- about a gallon or 2 from the 10, refill from the 20, top of the 20 from the tub.
Is that a good plan? Should I wait until I'm closer to fry? Should I wait for the fry to hatch and move them individually? Do I need to worry about the females laying another clutch immediately and him not having time to bulk back up (They're starting to plump again)? Should I stick him in one of my cory breeding taks for a week and let him feed back up?
Also, on fry feeding - I am not ready to commit to a brine hatchery. While I have a plan that will allow me to set one up on a 24 hour cycle (4 containers kept at 84º, and rotated to harvest at 0800 and 2000 daily), I am not going to be ready to implement it until sometime in February or March. In the meantime, I was thinking Cyclopeze supplemented with frozen rotifers to start, shifting to frozen baby brine, and a partial spirulina tablet daily.
Alternately, I could do romaine lettuce leaves blanched and kept in a half gallon jar of aquarium water with some filter squeezings.
So have I got this more or less right?
Thanks for your time.
JT