Pseudohemiodon Apithanos breeding project

[jac]

I am a proud owner of 6 Pseudohemiodon Apithanos I started out with 4 females, three of them are proven females and have produced fry. http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/view ... +apithanos

But I needed to find some males. And yesterday I finally collected some which were ordered specially

Here are my females:

Proven female, 1





Proven female, 2



Female 3





Youngest female, 4



The males:

Male 1





Male 2






I tried to stick two pictures together to show the difference in headshape.
First combi is from male 1 and female 1



Combi 2 is from male 2 with female 3



I know it's difficult but you can see the difference in headshape of a proven female and the new male. Imagine a triangle from tip of the nose to the end of the head (beginning of pectorial fins). male have a slightly elongated headshape.

Now all I have to do is prove this by spawning lot's of baby's

[krazyGeoff]

Good luck with this project Jac.

Cheers
Geoff

[racoll]

@jac, I think you are spot on with the sexing there. Good luck from me too!

[nvcichlids]

majorly jealous!!!!

[jac]

Thanks all!

@Racoll, you just made my day! Thank you for your confirmation

They are doing fine. This morning was the best morning so far, I actually spotted the new males eating something. They still hide a lot and don't move throughout the day. But I'm hopeful they will be fine and settle in with the ladies.

[Jools]

Is there any chance of ventral shots of the fishes? That, and a couple of the excellent images above, would made good additions to the cat-eLog.

Jools

[jac]

I will send you some pictures Jools, just have to find some time to do that soon I don't have ventral shots of the males and I really don't want to catch them out right now. They are still very shy and I'm busy trying to convince them to spawn

[jamesleagas]

I will send you some pictures Jools, just have to find some time to do that soon I don't have ventral shots of the males and I really don't want to catch them out right now. They are still very shy and I'm busy trying to convince them to spawn

Good luck, really looking forward to following your progress

[jac]

To update this tread I have made some pictures of my male Apithanos this afternoon.

Pictures of male 1 (as above) 3,5 months later:





Ventral shot of female 1:

[bekateen]

Hi Jac,

Beautiful fish!

I'd like to know if you believe that the appearance of your "male 1" has changed since your first photos 3.5 months ago. Is his head any different? Does his head still appear to have the same narrower, more pointy appearance that you reported before? And if it has changed, have the females changed also?

I ask in relation to the other thread which concerns sexing these catfish. In that thread, we were discussing the possibility that the physical differences between males and females might change as they age and with conditioning. So now that you've had your male a while, does he still look obviously "male" in your view / opinion, especially with regard to the head?

Thanks, Eric

[fishlover424]

Hello Jac,

Where did you get all those beautiful fish from? I have been struggling for a while now with finding some to my own tank.
If your breeding project comes out successfully, I will be most willing to purchase some juveniles.

I am perfectly new to this forum and I love it already!

Good Luck!

[jac]

Update

Last Thursday they were just suddenly there.....eggs!! No obvious parents, most adults were just hiding under the sand. No where near the eggs.



The eggs looked very pale and for the past few days I've been wondering if they were fertilized... I put the eggs in a tumbler and just waited.

Day one, 24 hours



After 24 hours the egg started to change. It divided into two halves, pale/yellow on the bottom and a clear substance on top. In the middle was a white blotch.

On day 3 it became more clear something was happening inside the egg and I was (very cautiously!) getting excited!
I had to clean the sponge and the tumbler so I put the eggs in a container and made a picture for more details.





But today I got the best view ever and now I'm certain, the eggs contain life inside!! A little tail movement proves that the white blotch in the egg is actually a growing embryo Sorry for my trembling hands btw.. Hope you can see it!!



And a side view of the eggs on day 4 of development.

[bekateen]

Wonderful! You're a proud mother. Congratulations.
Cheers, Eric

[Jools]

Apologies for the "like" post, but well done.

Jools

[krazyGeoff]

Fantabulous !!!

[CharlieM9]

Very awesome Jac!!!! Please keep the updates coming!

[jac]

Apologies for the "like" post, but well done.

Jools

I "like" your "like" post! Thanks Jools


And thanks to all, will keep you updated of their development

[jac]

Day 5.

Little veins and some eye's have appeared in the eggs









Side view:



Top view:

[jac]

Day 6

[jac]

When I came in my fish house this morning I noticed my brown female and the smaller male courting in the corner of the tank. The bottom of the tank was bare, all sand was removed. The female tried to push him over while the male was making strange head movements. Exciting times Really nice to see them in action!

[bekateen]

Hi jac,
What kind of egg tumbler are you using?
Thanks, Eric

[CharlieM9]

When I came in my fish house this morning I noticed my brown female and the smaller male courting in the corner of the tank. The bottom of the tank was bare, all sand was removed. The female tried to push him over while the male was making strange head movements. Exciting times Really nice to see them in action!

That is awesome JAC! That is always a wonderful feeling seeing stuff like that! Not to sidetrack, but I felt the same way when I turned the lights on a few hours after normal lights out and managed to get a video of the courtship/spawning behavior of my

hemiodontichthys acipenserinus

.

It is nice to see the whiptail getting so much love lately! I believe it was Jools who once made a comment along the lines of "I've never gone into an lfs and thought to myself, 'Oh, another tank full of whiptails, shrug'"!

Hopefully another male is holding tomorrow or soon for you!

[jac]

Hi jac,
What kind of egg tumbler are you using?
Thanks, Eric

I use ZET-80 Sizz tumblers. Never had such good tumblers before!

[jac]

When I came in my fish house this morning I noticed my brown female and the smaller male courting in the corner of the tank. The bottom of the tank was bare, all sand was removed. The female tried to push him over while the male was making strange head movements. Exciting times Really nice to see them in action!

That is awesome JAC! That is always a wonderful feeling seeing stuff like that! Not to sidetrack, but I felt the same way when I turned the lights on a few hours after normal lights out and managed to get a video of the courtship/spawning behavior of my

hemiodontichthys acipenserinus

.

It is nice to see the whiptail getting so much love lately! I believe it was Jools who once made a comment along the lines of "I've never gone into an lfs and thought to myself, 'Oh, another tank full of whiptails, shrug'"!

Hopefully another male is holding tomorrow or soon for you!

Nothing found yesterday or this morning. But they are active that's for sure
I have a group of

hemiodontichthys acipenserinus

, bought not long ago (March). They are the most slow moving Whiptails I have ever seen ;) Hoping to spawn these too in the future. I have always had a weak spot for Whiptails

[jac]

Day 7. Today I had some problems with the eggs.. On the right you can see an egg which has enlarged, I think it is due to osmotic pressure. On the left is a dead egg swirling but you can also see another dead larvae, it's the one with the white spot on the egg. So lost 3 larvae at this stage. One of the larvae hatched premature, my fault I guess because I rinsed the eggs out of the tumbler so I could clean it... When I put them back gently it hatched
I did a small water change, about 25%, using warm water to refresh to keep the temperature the same. I then put a blanket on top of the tank to make it dark where the eggs are in the tumbler.
It seemed to have worked and the larvae were ok the next morning. I did another small water change today, same routine. Even the premature hatchling was doing fine and had even grown during the night! So a bit more hopeful ;)

Day 7





Day 8, top view



Day 8, side view

[jac]

Day 9. The outer shell isn't very clean anymore and a little fungus has started to attach.. It's a hard job keeping eggs good for such a long time!!



Top view



Side view



Later on I went to feed the fish and noticed one of the fry had it's tail out of the shell and wiggling it hard. So I helped it out of it's eggshell.. Another premature baby Apithanos in the tumbler.

[CharlieM9]

Jac, it is amazing to think how much these whiptails or plecos even do to keep the eggs healthy, and in comparison how much less effective most things we try to use are.

Hope the eggs are still doing well enough!

[jac]

They didn't make it unfortunately.... The premature fry had died and the remaining eggs died due to the fungus... I have 1 egg but that also doesn't look good enough to survive.
Hopefully the male will try and take care of his second batch, if they spawn again. This was defiantly one of the most difficult tasks I have had so far incubating eggs...

[bekateen]

Sorry, jac. Don't give up, keep trying. With the help of your fish, you will succeed.

Cheers, Eric

[jac]

Lost the very last egg yesterday morning.... Only the tail was out of the eggshell when I found it in the morning. I removed the shell but the fry was already dead