S.barbatus fry!

[bronzefry]

My Scleromystax barbatus have been attempting to lay eggs for a while. The first attempt, they squished the eggs. The second and third attempts, the eggs fungused. This time:

These larvae hatched sometime last night(between Sunday and Monday). These eggs are incredibly sticky and gooey when first laid. I find it interesting when a colourful fish has larvae that are almost devoid of colour, except for the eyes. This transformation, like that with C.trilineatus, should be fun to watch.

What seemed odd about this batch of eggs to me was that the male was "helpful" with half of them, i.e., it appeared he was placing the eggs on his own. What was pointed out to me on CorydorasWorld is that the male sometimes goes over the eggs a second time. Since he had so much egg on his odontodes, I made the assumption HE was placing the eggs himself. This assumption was most likely incorrect. About half of the eggs have hatched so far, after 4 days. There are more than 20 active larvae. The yolk sac seems to be disappearing rapidly.

Also of interest, these S.barbatus(1 male, 5 females) are not yet fully grown. Any input and thoughts are most welcome.
Thanks,
Amanda
Amanda

[racoll]

Best of luck with them Amanda.

Well done.

[NEONCORY]

Congraturation Amanda,

So they laid 40~50 eggs, then? I hear they tend to leave eggs in the cruster on the top corner glass?
I also heard that male can be territorial when they are in the breeding condition, of course the tank size play the part, I'm sure. But your sex ratio is probably good thing.
It is always fun and exciting to see the little frys come out of the eggs. And watch them grow. I have some eggs and frys from C.Pandas, C.Sterbai and C.Melanotaenias. And still try to find the better way to do.

[MatsP]

Congratulations, and good luck with the upbringing of these fry.

--
Mats

[bronzefry]

Congraturation Amanda,

So they laid 40~50 eggs, then? I hear they tend to leave eggs in the cruster on the top corner glass?
I also heard that male can be territorial when they are in the breeding condition, of course the tank size play the part, I'm sure. But your sex ratio is probably good thing.
It is always fun and exciting to see the little frys come out of the eggs. And watch them grow. I have some eggs and frys from C.Pandas, C.Sterbai and C.Melanotaenias. And still try to find the better way to do.

Thanks, all! Congrats on your eggs and fry, Neon. This is my second new species(C.trilineatus) in a month. Until now, I had only bred C.aeneus and C.paleatus.

They did leave the eggs about 1" from the water line. The male is territorial for this type of species but his attacks come in the form of rubbing his odontodes and swimming around his corner. More bluster than anything else, for now. He doesn't keep anybody from their food. Some folks have success with more than one male, others with just one male. Their eggs look very different and are easy to distinguish. The S.barbatus eggs are large, very sticky and in clusters. They breed all over the tank, but place the eggs in very carefully chosen spots. I could tell months before where they were going to be placed. All of them, males and females, were furiously cleaning near the top of the tank in two certain areas.
Amanda

[Marc van Arc]

Well done Amanda! Keep up the good work.

[Deb]

Just saw your good news, Amanda!
And with only one male, too! Great!
Hope all continues to go well.
Please post more pix when you have a chance.
I think it's so interesting that they were preparing two specific areas, and that you could tell what they were up to.
Very good observations, and great notes!

[bronzefry]

Go figure. The water temperture rose and they bred again. Once they turn on....
Amanda

[cartouche]

I think that the eggs are the biggest breeding problem in this species. They place them on a single place in large clusters, and they are so sticky that you can't separate them without damage. If you remove them from the glass and let them stuck together in a hatching tank, some of the eggs will certainly turn out to be infertile or damaged, and when it desintegrates, it spoils the whole bunch. Hence I consistently have a very low productivity in this species.

[Coryologist]

I think that the eggs are the biggest breeding problem in this species. - Quote edited by Coryologist

Might I suggest moving the adults and leaving the eggs untouched? Since I stopped moving the eggs I have a much higher hatch rate and no fungus at all. My last spawn resulted in 70 healthy fry, with no losses. Just a thought. - Frank

[cartouche]

I think that the eggs are the biggest breeding problem in this species. - Quote edited by Coryologist

Might I suggest moving the adults and leaving the eggs untouched? Since I stopped moving the eggs I have a much higher hatch rate and no fungus at all. My last spawn resulted in 70 healthy fry, with no losses. Just a thought. - Frank

This is a science-fiction, really. I don't have enough empty tanks in my fishhouse to let 20 fish unceasingly rotate around the room.

[Coryologist]

Too funny for words. If your group of 20 fish are spawning "unceasingly," I'd learn to live with whatever success rate you obtain. I have over 100 tanks and I have to juggle fish on a daily basis, but I do what's necessary to save as many fish as possible. It ain't rocket science. - Frank

[cartouche]

Thanks for your suggestions, but it's a worthless discussion, because you don't know, how my fish house is arranged.

[bronzefry]

Sadly, about half of the first group died. I've been doing a one gallon water change before I feed them. This is once in the morning and once in the evening(2 gallons per day in a 10 gallon tank). The water changes include suctioning out most of the "tumbleweeds" that collect. I noticed that these juveniles grow quite quickly. None of the test kits I own have registered anything by way of ammonia, nitrates or nitrites(I'm using RO water). I'm down to 10 from this first viable group. I'm thinking they're growing quite quickly. The water temp. is 76F. Any suggestions?
Amanda

[Chrysichthys]

Do you mean you're using 100% RO water? That is likely to cause a pH crash because RO water has no buffering capacity.

[Bas Pels]

Besides the buffering capacity, I wonder whether barbatus wopuld really prefer that soft water.

Remember, they originate from south Brasil. thus they are not amazonian, but swimming in less extremely soft water.

I think 8 DH would suit them better than 0

[bronzefry]

During the hatching process, some people have found that the acidic water helps. I've strangely found that adding floating plants raises the buffering just a tad(I'm clueless on the chemistry bit) and also brings in more food. It went up 20 points(I've done the same with the second tank of S.barbatus and C.trilineatus). I've got 80 microSeimens for a hardness and 7.2 for pH(airstone boosted). The dipstick registered 6.8 pH, no nitrite and "safe" nitrate(I never trust that). I think they may have been looking for more food, too. The water is incredibly bad to start with(town well water). The RO brings it down to just drinkable(it's our drinking water, too).

This is day 12 at feeding no.1. The food disappears very quickly. Thank you for the input!!!!
Amanda

[Chrysichthys]

I've strangely found that adding floating plants raises the buffering just a tad(I'm clueless on the chemistry bit)

Adding plants raises the pH slightly because the plants take up dissolved CO2, reducing the level of carbonic acid. At night they respire CO2, the carbonic acid increases, and the pH drops a bit.

This is never likely to cause any problems, though, and has no bearing on your original query; just a point of interest.

[bronzefry]

Thanks for the response. I've also replaced the airstone. The new one is larger. They seem to have a case of the horrible hungries at the moment. No food is enough. They eat with incredible gusto. I'm up to 3 full feedings per day. When the tank light goes on in the morning, they're attacking the rootlets from the floating plants(as their parents do). At the moment, another small group of S.barbatus fry are doing well, too. There's another group of eggs. I'm waiting for them to hatch. It seems this group likes to breed with humidity changes more than anything. The last batch of eggs came on a 90 degree F.day. The tank water was almost 80 degrees F.
Amanda

[grokefish]

Cool