Auchenipterichthys coracoideus (zamora woodcat) spawned

[bekateen]

Hi All,

I awoke this morning to find Zamora woodcat (

Auchenipterichthys coracoideus

) eggs all over my tank. From what I've been told, I know they aren't difficult to breed; but there just isn't a lot written about spawning them. (There's only one other BLOG entry, and a brief forum post from 2007 by @Shaun, linked here).

The eggs are a transparent milky color, almost invisible. I hope they are viable and developing. About 1-2 weeks ago, I saw two fungused eggs attached to my sponge filter, but didn't know which species produced them (tankmates include

Corydoras eques

and

Hypancistrus debilittera

); I suspected they were zamora eggs, and I now know they were.

Video to follow.

Cheers, Eric

[Mol_PMB]

Congratulations, Eric! I’ll be following developments with interest - I’ve never kept woodcats but always been rather tempted by them.

My fish seem to be celebrating Easter with eggs as well - I had spawns from Corydoras oiapoquensis, Farlowella vittata and Biotodoma cupido all on Thursday.

[bekateen]

Hi Paul,

Thank you. And congratulations to you also for all your new eggs!

Cheers, Eric

[MarcW]

Congratulations Eric, I'm still waiting for a woodcat spawn.

Hopefully the eggs develop well and you get some young.

[bekateen]

Thanks Marc!

I gotta stop looking into the tank. Every time I find another stray egg, I add it to the basket. Now I'm up to 121

Auchenipterichthys coracoideus

eggs recovered (and I still see at least 5 more eggs loose in the tank)!

Here's a retelling of the spawning circumstances (recorded on day of spawn):

Cheers, Eric

Auchenipterichthys coracoideus first recorded spawn

[bekateen]

UPDATE: on Sun April 21, I sifted through the plant leaves and got over 10 more eggs, and I still see more in the tank. These are not another spawn, they are leftovers from the day before. Now I've got at least 131 eggs collected, and I estimate there's probably 140-150 total if you count the eggs still loose in the tank and the 2-3 I destroyed trying to collect.

[Jools]

Great work! I guess you're going to raise them in a nursery tank or similar? You might glean some useful info from spawns of

Tatia

?

Cheers,

Jools

[bekateen]

Great work! I guess you're going to raise them in a nursery tank or similar? You might glean some useful info from spawns of

Tatia

?

Thanks Jools,

Right now the eggs are in a fry basket to hatch, and if they hatch I'll leave them in the basket for at least a week or three to keep them in their parent's water. Then I'll move them to a grow out tank.

There's another guy near me who's had 4-5 spawns from this same species (in fact, I split my group of 8 fish to give him half my adults), and already he has about 100 surviving fry, the largest about 1.5" (plus about 100 more eggs about to hatch). I've been turning to him for advice so far. That said, yes I have looked at a couple of Tatia reports, but haven't taken the time yet to dig deeper. I definitely will.

Cheers, Eric

[bekateen]

Eggs are now over 48 hours old, and some have changed from a translucent milky color (both egg and jelly coat) to a transparent yellow egg with clear jelly coat (see photo). On each yellow yolk mass is a thin 2-3mm white embryo wiggling around within the jelly coat. Many eggs/jelly coats are still white and some are starting to fungus.

I don't have a good sense of how many are yellow, but I can count about a dozen.

Hmmm. Interesting change. My friend foretold me that the eggs were yellow, but I couldn't see any like that until now. I wonder if these were yellow on the morning after being laid and I simply didn't notice them through the milky jelly coats?

Time will tell!

Cheers, Eric

[bekateen]

On Thursday, day 5 after laying, the eggs started hatching, and a few more are still hatching this morning.

But the new news is that also this morning, 7 days after the first spawn, I see fresh eggs!

[CoryWally]

A great achievement Eric.

I hadn't heard of them being spawned before.

Looking forward to your updates.

Mark.

[bekateen]

Thanks Mark. It's certainly exciting for me to watch the eggs and fry develop.

As far as previous spawns, I know two people, one personally, in the USA who've spawned these in the last 6 months or so.

As for my own fish, from the first 140 eggs I collected, I can only estimate the number hatching because the babies move so fast I can't actually count them individually. I said above that only about a dozen eggs turned yellow, but now I think it was more. Maybe 20-25 eggs hatched; I doubt it could be much higher than that. I may revise the number upward as they grow and I'm able to get a better count.

[bekateen]

The second batch of eggs hatched overnight, again taking 5 days to hatch. Newly hatched wigglers hang out at the bottom of the fry basket and mostly sit still, occasionally zipping frantically from one place to another.

The fry from the first clutch are now 7 days old, 8mm SL, and swimming around the basket in the open midwater, I presume searching for food. So far, the only first food I've
given them is dry powdered (dust) Repashy bottom scratcher.

Here's a picture of one of the older fry.

[bekateen]

This week I counted all the fry I have remaining from those two spawns at the end of April and start of May. In total, I have about 17 juvies. There are 2-3 individuals that are weirdly colored. Their heads and caudal peduncles are very pale and they have a single dark spot on the midbody flank. By contrast, the other fish appear approximately evenly dark when viewed from above.

Cheers, Eric

[MarcW]

Good to see you have managed to raise some Eric.

It could just be the perspective of the pictures, the paler ones look smaller to me, could they just be developing slower, maybe not getting as much food as the others? Maybe in a few weeks they'll catch up and their colour will darken?

[bekateen]

Hi Marc,
Thanks. Yes those are all possibilities, although at least one of the pale fish is quite large. Although I always see 2-3 pale fish, honestly I have no idea if they're the same fish each time. Maybe it's just normal color change.
Time will tell.
Cheers, Eric

[bekateen]

Dang,

I went away for the weekend (Father's Day) and in my absence, the basket holding the 1.5 month old zamora fry tipped over and released the babies into their parents' tank. I don't see any of the fry now. Either they're really good at hiding in the tank, or they're hiding in their parents' stomaches.

Also, I missed a fresh spawn by the parents (maybe they spawned after a nutritional meal of fry!)... I see a bunch of old eggs around the tank, but none look good. Not ghostly clear/white, but just white.

I guess we start over.

Regards, Eric

[MarcW]

That's a shame, I'll keep my fingers crossed that they are hiding.

Given the number of eggs you found last time, hopefully there are a few viable eggs hiding too!

[bekateen]

Great news. While doing a water change last week, I observed three of the fry. Since then, I've seen at least six at once during feedings with frozen brine shrimp. Today I managed to net one of the smaller fish for photos. I don't know if all 17 are still alive, but definitely many have survived. I'm really relieved.

The white spot on its flank is a sand grain.

Cheers, Eric

[bekateen]

Here's one of the larger juveniles. It paused momentarily while eating frozen brine shrimp; otherwise, photo would have been a blur.

[bekateen]

Three months old. Largest fish is 40mm SL. Dang they grow fast!

[bekateen]

Offspring now six months old; largest is 70mm SL. Time for them to go to market.

Cheers, Eric

[jac]

Great job, nice picture update too
Thanks for sharing!

[CoryWally]

Great achievement Eric!

[Mol_PMB]

They look great! Congratulations.

[bekateen]

Thanks, everyone.

Cheers, Eric

[bekateen]

Hi All,

It's been a while since I saw these

Auchenipterichthys coracoideus

do anything interesting, but tonight I observed two adults (I estimate 8-10cm SL each) get into a clasped spiral and swim to the water surface before breaking off. Sadly, I found no eggs tonight. But I'll check again tomorrow.

P.s. these fish LOVE Cobalt brand shrimp pellets!

Cheers, Eric

Direct link to YouTube video: Auchenipterichthys coracoideus courtship or conflict? 2022-01-13

[bekateen]

In this screen capture, you can see the male really twisting his anal fin while trying to inseminate the female:

[bekateen]

Auchenipterichthys coracoideus

spawned again. It's been a long time since I've had any eggs from these parents, so it's nice to see spawning restart. I don't think these eggs are viable but again, it's a restart... Hopefully more eggs follow these.

Not knowing if the eggs are viable, I collected as many as I could. Approximately 170 eggs. Fingers crossed!

[bekateen]

None of these eggs seem to be developing, and most have fungused. But last night I found a few fresh eggs with yellow yolks. These look more like what I recall as good eggs. I put them in a German breeder ring.

Cheers, Eric