hastatus spawning in maintenance tank

[pleco_breeder]

Hello all,

I've read a lot about raising hastatus in a species only tank over the last couple years. In December, I decided to get a group to try it myself and see how productive it can be. I have 18 adults in a ten gallon tank with one side of the tank covered in spawning mops to give adults a reasonable place to lay their eggs. They seem to be just as likely to lay on the walls as the mops, but it does seem to be their favored side of the tank. The gravel has more blackworms than they will likely ever manage to eat, but I put a new scoop in there every 4-6 weeks just to make sure they're well fed. They also receive frozen cyclops, decap brine, and 2-4 feedings of sinking pellets every day to keep them in good shape and try to limit their appetite for caviar.

Anyway, to my problem. They have been spawning off and on for the past 6 weeks and I've only managed to see one short glimpse of a fry about a month ago. They have been on a constant, daily, breeding streak for the past ten days, and I don't think I manage to see an egg last longer than 2-3 days before it also disappears. I'm hopeful that something hidden deep in the mops may be surviving long enough to hatch, but I remember them taking a bit longer than this to hatch the last time I was raising them. Is there something that I'm overlooking, and should be doing, to make this system work with them?

I'd like to give the system a chance to work since several others have written about successes using it, but would also like to raise a halfway reasonable group of fry. If it doesn't work a bit better than this, my next step is to separate them for a week to condition and put them back together for a couple days after the weekly water change. I didn't want to have to use another tank for them, but would like to have a few F-1 to add to my wild group.

Larry

[pleco_breeder]

No improvements, but thought I would share a newly noticed development. There has been a layer of gravel in the tank since I set it up, and I always keep it in my cory tanks so I can maintain a constant supply of blackworms for conditioning. In my more intermittent set-ups, where corys are just placed long enough to breed and pulled so the eggs can hatch, I just put a small crock dish full of gravel for the worms. Anyway, I'm digressing from the point here.

I feed most of the tanks on this rack the same foods on the same schedule. First feeding is cyclops, second is decap, the remainder of the day they get sinking pellets every two hours till I either go to work or 6 pm when I close up the fishroom for the day. I had been thinking that the corys were getting most of the decaps before it got into the gravel, and maybe they are since they do swarm it when it's put in the tank.

I placed my Syno lucipinnis fry tube in their tank, on the same central system, when I changed tubes to prepare for their next spawn. I'm normally on such a tight schedule that I have to feed and run to the next chore, so I wasn't paying a lot of attention to what was happening in the tank. However, I'm working in the fishroom today making more tubes in preparation for spawns that will happen this weekend and happened to notice that the hastatus were swarming the underside of the Syno tube.

There are always a couple shrimp hanging onto it and picking the occasional decap through the mesh, so I thought the shrimp were just keeping things clean for the fry and a couple brine shrimp eggs isn't anything to worry about. My thoughts are that the corys have learned that there is a constant supply of brine shrimp there and are staying conditioned by eating what the Synodontis fry aren't immediately eating.

I don't plan to remove the tube anytime soon, but thought I would share why I now think I'm on such a roll spawning these fish as it may help someone else working with them. I'm still waiting on these to stop eating all the eggs and will likely wait another 1-2 weeks before going to a more traditional breeding method if a few fry don't show up.

Larry

[chinacoat]

Hi Larry, great journal about your hastatus breeding! I know this is off topic but can you point me in the right direct as to how to obtain some hastatus corys? I've been searching and non are available around San francisco. Thanks!

[chinacoat]

Hi, Sorry to be responding through this thread, but I am a new member and I cannot reply to PM's until I become more active! When you are ready to sell some hastatus just let me know! Im still on the hunt, but I'm sure when I get my hands on some the more the merrier... thanks a lot!

-Chester