Sturisoma breeding- First Spawn

[Luis.Ventura]

Hello everyone,
Once again I come here whit questions, the day before yesterday my Sturisoma mated and well....I had some eggs.

My problem now is, I´m not sure of what sturisoma i have since they seems Aureum or Festivum, for me they seem very similar and I can´t find a way to distinguish them, I would appreciate if someone help me in this matter.

Now the eggs.... I woke up and saw both male and female in the front glass and whent to look what it was since i also saw some huge spots near them, there was 3 eggs in the glass and 10/12 on the floor and leaves.
I needed to leave (was going to get a new Cube for my shrimps) and when i arrived there was only 3/4 on the floor and the ones in the glass (other 3), Big mistake i know.....
most eggs where not fertilized and after 2/3 days they went bad and i had to remove them so that if any fungus appear it did not destroy the healthy ones.
They have born today (YEY) they are little copies from the parents hehe (photos will flow next).

so help me here what do I feed them when they lose their yok sack?

For identification:

[Luis.Ventura]

Photos:
Parents and one egg

Male

Female

Both for comparison

Close up of head from male

Close up of head from female

genitalia from Female

genitalia from Male

one of the eggs, you can see the pigmentation on their back

First born

ye he is photogenic



Second Born

[MatsP]

Congratulations. Feeding the fry will be your next challenge. I found that algae wafers or tabimin rubbed against a coarse sand-paper to make a fine powder food is a good way to make food for the babies.

--
Mats

[Luis.Ventura]

Ty mats its was really a surprise to me

you saying to make dust food and just let it in the water?
or leaving tiny bits that go for the bottom?

[MatsP]

The problem I've had is that the fry is too lazy [1] to go looking for food. I know Apistomaster has less lazy fry...

[1] Obviously lazy isn't quite the correct term - in nature, I expect sitting still is beneficial in their wild habitat.

--
Mats

[Luis.Ventura]

and is there any way to distinguish them from aureum and festivum?

[Firestorming]

I grind up new life spectrum wafers (or use spirulina powder) and mix it with egg white until I have a stinky green glue looking mix.
I then paint the mix onto small round rocks (1 to 2 inches like beach pebbles) and place them outside to "bake" dry.
I then add the rock to a fry saver with with sturisoma and farlowella fry and they seem to do quite well that way. I think it is a mix of the egg white proteins and the algae/spirulina that seems to boost survival rates.

[apistomaster]

Odds are good you have a pair of Sturisoma aueum.
Their first spawns do not always get as dedicated brood care from the male as later spawns. They can spawn every 2 to 3 weeks for several months if they are kept in good condition and your fish do look very good.
I consider the fry and juveniles to be a real pain in the butt to raise but I wrote up how I do it. It is on this site. See "my articles" under my avatar photo for the link to the article. My method is not the simplest way but I have high survival rates. EDIT. The article is not listed under my avatar. I'm still not used to the changes have been made to the "Shane's World" section. Here it is: http://www.planetcatfish.com/shanesworl ... +Sturisoma
I do not breed them for sale because people list adult wild fish on aquabid for as little as US$12 each and they require way too much care to grow to a size where most anyone can keep them healthy. Based on the effort and survival rates they need to retail for $25 each in order to begin covering the effort it takes to raise nearly all of every brood. They start off slow but by 8 months I had some that bred clumsily like this prenuptial pair.

Wild adults pack their eggs into neat patches and produce a lot of them.

Little guys less than 2-3/4 inches.

[Luis.Ventura]

OK some English question, Media bag/media tissue is like that? lady stockings?

the plastic container in the bottom to hold food is just that? to hold food and the little ones go the to eat?

You say in the literature that they like more insects then vegetables, would they like vinegar eals? since its a live food that survives underwater and are really really small.

[MatsP]

A lady stocking will work as a replacement for a media bag, yes. A media bag is something used to hold the filter media in a filter that doesn't have trays (or if the filter media is too small to stay in place in the tray).

I'm afraid I can't answer the other two questions.

--
Mats

[Bas Pels]

You say in the literature that they like more insects then vegetables, would they like vinegar eals? since its a live food that survives underwater and are really really small.

My Sturiosoma keep on producing fry, but I rarely manage to raise them.

The only time I succeeded (I got 3 offspring @ 7 cm now, in another tank) they fed on the corpse of an old Xiphophorus montesumae @ 8 cm. Unfortunately, when I added a dead fish to the next batch of fry, I was not able to reproduce this

I think a suckermouth such as Sturiosoma has is better suited for rasping from a large prey/surface than for eating small particles

[Linus_Cello]

Larry- what are the apistos/dwarf chiclids in the last pic?

[apistomaster]

Larry- what are the apistos/dwarf chiclids in the last pic?

Those are juvenile Apistogramma cacatuoides from a cross between a double red and Gold-white. I do not have any of those now but when they were ready to sell they looked like these.

I will add some new species soon but all I am currently raising is A. trifasciata, one of the best beginners Apisto species. Here is a 5 month old male.

If you use earth worm sticks as the primary food for juvenile Sturisoma it quickly breaks down to a soft mush which they can easily eat regardless of their size.

[novi]

Festivum have longer fins and arched, culminating in a mustache (and looks like a Chinese dragon magic). Aureum has almost the entire surface of the pectoral fins speckled spots.

below 18cm Sturisoma sp_festivum or aff_festivum



Sturisoma festivum or aff.festivum




1mounth sturisoma


Sturisomatichthys sp.




Yours fish are closer to aurem

nutrition of young ... Arthemia plus spirulina (Sera tabs) pounded on a stone

[apistomaster]

I prefer earth worm sticks for 2 reasons.
Fist I believe the Sturisoma are primarily aquatic insect larvae and aquatic insect egg predators. They eat a lot of algae in order to accumulate enough animal protein but I also feed mine a few Spirulina sticks to help balance their aquarium diet so it is reasonablly similar to their natural feeding habits but just the earth worm sticks contain enough Spirulina to meet most of their needs. The sticks disintegrate enough for even the smallest fry to consume. I think it is a mistake to over emphasize their vegetarian tendencies.
As soon as the juveniles have grown large enough I also feed them a lot of frozen blood worms and live black worms. What little algae they need is foraged from the submerged surfaces. Sturisoma love live black worms and frozen blood worms.
To me, a lack of enthusiasm for certain foods is telling me the foods are too different from what they seek and need.
I do not understand taking the trouble to create time consuming egg glued foods to rocks nor powdering foods which are primarily algae wafers. If you can accept they have a primarily carnivorous nature you will experience greater success in raising the delicate fry if you provide the foods which are composed of primarily animal protein. The newly hatched fry normally have at least 2 to 3 days of residual yolk sacs and for those days they do not eat much if anything.
Since I have proven that the foods I use produce good results and so few types are required I do not understand most alternative and difficult to perform feeding methods.
Don't focus so much on the filter media bags I tried as those were part of my learning curve. They mainly served to provide me with proof that Sturisoma fry actively seek out the foods I recommend. Fry hatched out in an 18" deep tank and although they did find and use the food placed in the media bags it is better to begin them in water only about 6 inches deep. The fry do not seem to thrive in deeper water and this gradually changes as they get larger. By the time they are 2-1/2 inches the depth of the water no longer matter so much but it does take a long time for them to reach 2-1/2 inches. After they have reached that size they can and do vigorously feed on live black worms and frozen blood worms and growth from that point becomes rapid. As I mentioned in a previous post I had 8 month old Sturisoma spawn although they were not good at providing the degree of care the 12 to 15 month old fish do.
Even very young fry swimming fry benefit greatly from having a strong current but you should also provide current breaking objects like wood and stones. All fish thought of as fast water fish actually take advantage of the boundary layer turbulence which creates a thin zone of slower but well oxygenated water in which they will spend the majority of their time. All fish have to balance an equation between the energy it takes to exist and feed with their need to seek refuge from the strongest constant currents.
To start some broods I used small ~4.5 gal tanks about 8 X 8 X 16 inches supplied with a strongly aerating air stone and a internal power filter, a Marineland Duetto DJ 100 which I ran full blast which is about 100 gph. This in only a 4-1/2 gal tank filled to only 6 inches. The inlet has to be covered by blue bonded filter pad or open cell filter foam like that used in Fluval Canister filters. This material has 20 pores per inch. The fry will also feed on the food that accumulates on these pre-filtering materials when they are in an active mood. I believe Sturisoma survival is as dependent upon access to strong currents as they are their preferred foods and they must also have easy access to resting places because as I have said even fast water species make great use of the calmer boundary layer flows to preserve strength best applied to growth. All fish have a definite energy balance equation which requires them to acquire their food with the least possible effort. I have learned the importance these boundary zone's countervailing currents in my years of understanding of trout biology and aquatic insect larvae ecology as a fly fisherman.
Large trout are found in raging waters but they only venture into these strongest flows to snatch food items carried in the currents but they immediately return to the quieter water along the bottom. These zones vary in their depth depending upon the size of the substrates. Boulder strewn raging waters have a large but relatively calm zones beneath the fastest flowing surface waters. As a fly fisherman skilled in using heavily weighted imitations of large stonefly nymphs I had to learn some basic hydrodynamic principles. For this type of fly fishing the challenge is how does one allow enough time for the flies to reach the deeper bottom zone where the fish are through many feet of very fast moving water. They actually avoid fighting the strong currents as much as possible yet can when they have to. It turns out there is no perfect solution but perhaps the best method is to cast far upstream of where you expect the larger fish are holding and allow enough slack for the imitation to reach the bottom but this leads to a very indirect connection with the fly. One is simply sweeping the bottom very slowly repeatedly casting then take just a couple more steps down stream. The take is rarely felt but the currents acting on the belly of the line tend to drag the fly a trout picks up to the corner of it's jaw. Then it hooks itself. I related this fly fishing technique to point out the existence of a different current at the bottom boundary zone and the great deal of intervening faster flowing water. These are universal forces found in cold and tropical waters.
The concept applies at every scale and is of great importance to the fry of fish like Sturisoma. Newly hatched fry are going to use the thinner boundary flows over pebbles and gradually take on scales upwards from there as they are grow.
Wood can serve the same purpose and are a preferred habitat so do not make too much of my examples of using pebbles to boulders in describing the boundary layer stratification of stream flows. I am emphasizing the boundary layer flows and not what objects/materials which create them but they are an essential part of what and how some fish seem to survive in extremely fast water. All fish evolve shapes which are conducive for prospering in fast water. Trying to understand the forces which shape the evolution of fish for specific environments is a rich source of inspiration when it comes to attempting to breed such fish in captivity but be aware of the major differences between an aquarium and a fishes native water's hydrodynamics. There are ways to help bridge or imitate these differences as necessary. Sturisoma are extremely strong swimming fish in fast water but they exploit the calmness of the boundary zones and use their suckermouth for more than just eating. It is an adaptation, as is their stream lined bodies to the realities of life in fast water. But no fish is able to indefinitely hold it's position in very fast water very long. These behavioral uses of the boundary layer and the sucker mouth are their most useful. It also so happens that aquatic insects reach very high levels of abundance in the boundary zones as rapids and riffles are typically richer in the algae and diatoms which form the base of the food pyramid. Theseaquatic insect larvae have hydrodynamically efficient body designs but even so, they are doomed to predation should they loose their footing on the rocks in the boundary layer. Which does happen frequently and why the larger trout claim these "prime lies". Cover and depth offer great protection from primary predators and easy access to an abundant food supply creates what are known a prime lies for the fish strong enough to dominate them. These concepts have been freely adapted into my way of thinking about how a given tropical fish has evolved to specialize to exploit their respective niches.