Hallo I have a question regarding Sturisoma aureum

[City Bowl]

Hallo My name is Gerald Buswell, I live in Cape Town, South Africa.
I have been following the forum for some time. I have a fishroom of 9 1.2 meter tanks, 8 50 cm cubes, and 11 45 cm small tanks. I am keeping mainly plecs and Corydoras with a view to breeding, amoungst them the following:

Loricariidae: L46 (13), L 102 (6), L 66 (2), Sturisoma aureum(5 adults), Rineloricaria fallax(1 pair plus young), Rineloricaria cf. platyura (3), Ancistrus dolichopterus (3), Rineloricaria parva, Peckoltia braueri, Farlowellas and Otocinclus mariae, Otocinclus macrospilus.

Callichthyidae: Corydoras duplicareus(3 adults plus young), Corydoras sterbai (14),Corydoras sodalis (5), Corydoras panda (6 plus young), Corydoras trilineatus, Corydoras similis and what I believe to be Corydoras albolineatus.

My question is regarding Sturisoma, which I assume are arueum, so far I have had three batches of eggs from two pairs and been unable to raise the fry, the longest any have survived for is about a month. I have been feeding them on powdered spirulina which has lead my most successful attempt so far. I have read I think all articles pertaining to breeding sturisomas on this site, but what I was wondering is exactly what should be fed at what stage and how often?
Is the secret here to raise them in a smaller tank the tank they are in is bare bottomed furnished with mopani wood java moss and ferns some swords and Ceratopteris floating for cover. The tank is filtered with two large mature Heuy Hung sponge filters, pH around 6.5 temperature 29°C.

[MatsP]

First of all, welcome to the site.

Bare-bottom tanks is probably not the best idea, as a film of bacteria forms on the bottom. In a gravel/sand bottomed tank, this film is thinner and less in direct contact with the babies (since the film forms on all sand/gravel grains on all sides, it's less concentrated).

The other factor is to have them literally "swimming in food", they seem to not want to move to find food, but rather expects to be able to find food near where they are. That's not to say that you should have LOTS of food, just that they need to have food within easy reach. One solution I've read about somewhere is to take a plastic drinks bottle (2 liter cola bottle or such), which you place the fry in, and using a pump to supply water into, using a overflow outlet to let fresh water out. That way, you constantly supply fresh water, but you also keep the fry close together and you can put the food in the bottle to ensure that it stays close to the babies. Early stage starvation is probably the biggest killer in fry - that's all fry of all fishes, just that Sturisoma and other Loricariinae are harder to feed because they won't go looking for food in the same way as many other fishes.

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Mats

[apistomaster]

Sturisoma aureum fry are not easy to raise to maturity.
The young are extremely fragile but must have very clean water and nearly constant supply of food.
Having had hundreds of fry to practice on this is what has worked best for me.
1. Place the fry or nearly ready to hatch eggs in a net breeder hung in the breeding tank. I place a fan shaped outlet on an Eheim Classic 2215 inside the net breeder and provided a number of the EhFiMech ceramic tubes to provide the fry with attachment points and for some algae to grow on. The fry are immediately attracted to the inflowing water and many hang in the outlet stream. These fish breed in fast flowing stream riffles in water 6 to 12 inches deep.(Pers. comm. Ed Ruiz field observations).
2. I have had my best success feeding the breeders and fry earthworm sticks. They will easily starve or become irreversibly stunted if the food supply is not continuous. I let them triple their size before considering giving them their own tank.
3.A strong current seems necessary at all phases of their growth. I use a thin layer of sand liberally littered with the EhfiMech ceramic tubes in their rearing tanks at first. I also provide potted plants and a liberal growth of Hornwort, Najas or Watersprite. Small shrimp like Cherry shrimp make excellent adjuncts because they help eat food the little Sturisoma miss. Any hint of pollution that results in ammonia and/or nitrite spikes will kill or permanently stunt them. Frequent water changes are important. Barbie has reported that they are sensitive to Excel.(pers comm.)
4. They seem to remain quite delicate even up to 3-inches SL. Once they reach a larger size then they may be cared for like the adults.
The above is what worked for me. Claims of raising 100% of the fry I sincerely doubt. There will be some losses. No species achieves 100% fry survival let alone a Sturisoma species. They take a lot of TLC and some good luck to raise to maturity. It is not that hard to grow most to almost 2 inches but not all of those will reach maturity.
Their growth rate dramatically increases once they are large enough to eat live black worms and frozen blood worms. They do eat algae but will starve on a diet that is exclusively vegetarian. I use two large sponge filters; one airlift driven and the other by a MaxiJet 600, 160 gph for 20Long to 40 gal breeder tanks.
I must differ from the statement that Sturisoma do not travel to their food but I agree it is best that they are in close proximity to it for the most part. The 1stnd photo shows five day old fry gathering around a container full of earthworm sticks at the opposite end from where they hatched in a 36 inch 35 gallon tank. This tank is 18 inches tall and I would never allow them to start out in water deeper than 12 inches. This was one of the first hatches and i was still learning.
5 day old fry.

5 day old fry feeding from a bag of earthworm mush.

Six month old juveniles. The A. cacatuoides are about 5/8 to 1 inch for scale.

[City Bowl]

Thanks for that Larry, are you feeding them earthworm sticks immediately, as a first food?

[MatsP]

Thanks for that Larry, are you feeding them earthworm stick immediately, as a first food?

I don't know what Larry does, but my findings on other Loricariidae fry is that they generally eat the same as the parents. Some food needs to be a bit softer so that they can bite bits of it when they are small (e.g you'd blanch (boil very short time) courgette/zucchini for the babies and leave it raw for the parents), but other than that, same food as the parents.

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Mats

[apistomaster]

My experience with Sturisoma aureum is that they are primarily carnivorous. They probably eat algae incidental to their search for small aquatic organisms in the wild as they feed on the biofilm coating of pebbles and stones in their native streams. I believe the algae is important to a complete diet but they make a bee line for earthworm sticks upon immediately beginning to feed in an aquarium environment.
The earthworm stick formulation includes Spirulina and shrimp meal so I think it is a fair approximation of their natural diet. It has proven to be an invaluable food for both my Loricaridae breeders and their fry. It is the staple diet of all of my plecos like Peckoltia L134, Hypancistrus sp L260, L46 Zebra and Panaque sp L204. The stick food turns to a soft mush soon after wetting. This is why it is so easy for the tiny fry to eat it and why you can see them sucking it through the mesh of filter media "feed bags."
It is also the staple food for my adult Heckel Discus. I hypothesize that it simulates detrital feeders diets better than most commercially available tropical fish foods. They were originally formulated as a conditioning food for the commercial aquaculture of Channel Catfish, Ictalurus. I also use the Spirulina sticks made by the same company. Both are available in the USA at http://www.aquaticeco.com and http://www.kensfish.com. These foods are also sold in the UK but I forgot the name of the distributor there.
They have proved superior to most foods marketed by the big name Tropical fish food makers for my purposes and a heck of a lot cheaper.
If Heckel Discus like it that says a lot. Heckels are detritus feeders, more so than wild Blue/Brown and Green Discus. They too will eat these foods but not with the same enthusiasm.Here are a group of Heckels raised primarily on earthworm sticks. I grew these 10 Heckels out from juveniles only about 3-inches in diameter. They are all 5-1/2 to 6-inches in diameter now. Caveat: Do not keep Sturisoma with Discus. They will drive them nuts and damage the skin of the discus from their constant rasping attacks. Even 3-inch Sturisoma will attack discus.

[Barbie]

I am only 3 weeks into raising my first batch of these guys, but I've had luck a bit different from everyone else. I lost one fry a day the first 4 days and I've only lost one since. I started with a spawn of 120 or so. The adult fish were still in my quarantine tank and were being fed live blackworms, Dainichi Veggie Reef FX, NLS grow pellets, and algae wafers.

I took half the eggs, in case the L128 they were being qt'd with got carnivorous. The male was able to defend them and when I noticed they started to hatch, I razorbladed the remaining fry and put them with the first half in the waiting fry condo. I use solid bottomed fry condos, not breeder nets, because I feel the small food that is best for feeding them stays in place better. A specimen container with a hole in one end and a notched sponge in it, with an air driven sponge filter feeding into the box works best for me. I drop in driftwood rubble that I've kept in with a healthy tank of ancistrus to potentially supplement needed intestinal bacteria (it's a debatable technique, but can't hurt!). I feed the fry the same thing I feed the adults (who are also in a bare bottom tank, btw), minus the live blackworms. They have more than doubled in size already and look like little miniatures of the adults, even at an inch!

The flow through the condo is pretty considerable, but allows the food to settle on the bottom. The fry will be found hanging all over the sides with round little tummies. I feed once a day, and clean the condo out thoroughly with a turkey baster every day. It's been working very well for me, so far. I use this method with all of my pleco fry, and even some of my more tender cichlid fry, such as Cyprichromis. It lets you really pour the food to the fry, without risking contamination of their tank water. I went so far as to have a friend build custom acrylic boxes with more chambers, but I loaned a few out and he's been too busy to make more. I need to work on an incentive program to get a few more if these fish are going to keep up like this! It seems like a great problem to have, hehe.

As Larry said, Flourish Excel at less than the beginning dose is almost immediately fatal to young Sturisoma aureum. It was one of the more sickening losses I've had. I purchased 12 to add to the 4 little guys I'd bought from him previously and proceeded to lose them the day I got them home when I dosed the planted tank I'd introduced them to. That tank contained tiny Ancistrus fry that handled the excel, no problem, and also 2 1.5" L260 fry that had hitchhiked in on a piece of wood I moved to the tank. I'm quite sure my efforts with growing these have been influenced by the experience working with the small fry I got from Larry previously.

I hope any of this helps! You can see pictures from the spawn at http://www.plecos.com/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=13 , but you'll need to change the * in plecos ;).
Barbie

[City Bowl]

Thanks Larry, a company I am involved with has the local agency for Omega Sea foods so I try and stick to their food range, the shrimp pellets are what I primarily feed most of my catfish plus various frozen foods, do you think that shrimp pellets equate to the earthworm pellets.
Thanks Barbie I am thinking that some sort of specialized tank is the answer what are peoples thoughts on the ideal fry raising setup for these fish would be... some sort of current some sort of food that wouldn't be washed out of reach.... Larry what would you put your success rate at at the moment?