reducing frequency of BN spawning

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lilu
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reducing frequency of BN spawning

Post by lilu »

Hi Everyone,

When my BN started spawning in April of this year it was very exciting :d Naively I thought it would be a one-off event or maybe just a few times a year keeping the growout of the fry manageable. However, they have been spawning nearly non-stop, there are constantly new fry emerging from the cave and the process starts over. I have so many fry of various ages that I don't know how I will be able to find homes for all of them - and it is putting a very serious toll on my filtration system. I remove as many of them as I can catch and put them in a fry growout tank, but since the main tank is heavily planted and they are really fast I catch most of them when they get into the filter sock. Is there a way to discourage spawning, other than removing one of the fish? Perhaps if I removed the male's cave? My concern with that is there are other caves being used by other fish and when I first got him, he was quite feisty in trying to kick the other fish out of his preferred cave. So if I take away his spawning cave he might start harassing the other fish, some of which are quite shy.

Thanks for any suggestions!!
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Re: reducing frequency of BN spawning

Post by apistomaster »

You either segregate the sexes or use the eggs/fry as fish food otherwise BN will over run any breeding tank.
They are extremely prolific as you have discovered.
Avid Trout fly fisherman. ·´¯`·...¸><)))º>
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Re: reducing frequency of BN spawning

Post by Atmichaels »

Apitsomaster is correct. Even pulling ALL the caves didn't work for me. My males were tenacious and dug caves in the substrate. Segregation is the only fail safe method.
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Re: reducing frequency of BN spawning

Post by JamesFish »

If you don't have a spare tank a tank divider works. It's a bit ugly and inconvenient but you don't need to remove fish just place in and remove again when you want them to spawn.
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lilu
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Re: reducing frequency of BN spawning

Post by lilu »

Thank you! I'll be separating them as suggested :d
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