Auchenipterichthys coracoideus (zamora woodcat) spawned

[bekateen]

Another

Auchenipterichthys coracoideus

spawn found today. Don't know how old they are, as embryos are already wiggling. There were lots of bad cloudy eggs, but even so, I was able to recover 35 good eggs from the tank and put them in an egg hatchery in the tank.

Cheers,
Eric

[bekateen]

Found and collected 7-8 more eggs from the tank this morning. They had drifted into an empty pleco cave. Total eggs now at least 42. All eggs appear to be developing well - no dead eggs this afternoon.

[bekateen]

Unlike my most recent

Amblydoras nauticus

eggs (of which I hatched only 75 out of almost 500 eggs, HERE), these Auchenipterichthys coracoideus eggs hatched without trouble. They're doing well.

[bekateen]

Another spawn last night.

I collected about 70 eggs of which about 20 collected eggs were bad. I threw a few bad eggs away before this photo was taken, but there are still some bad eggs shown here. Also, there are a lot more eggs (both good and bad) still in the tank, but they are difficult to collect.

Also visible in this second photo, fry from the previous spawn last week are swimming about... although a few are stationary, most of them are blurry in the picture.

[bekateen]

I was able to recover more good eggs from last night's spawn. In total, I'm now over 160 good eggs and there's still more good eggs loose in the tank. Here's the newest photo of the good eggs and a pic of the bad eggs.

One detail in noticed is that many of the eggs, both good and bad, have drifted through the water column until they get sucked up against the pre-filter sponge on my HOB intake. I saw this same effect in the spawn from Fall 2023 (picture HERE). I would recommend using a modestly strong sponge-covered intake as an intentional egg collector for drifting scattered eggs. I also see a couple of eggs attached to my canister filter intake grill, which makes me wonder how many eggs were sucked into the canister filter.

Cheers, Eric

[bekateen]

Removed about 10 newly bad eggs today from the breeder ring, and simultaneously collected about the same number of good eggs from the sponge prefilter.

[bekateen]

I divided the older Auchenipterichthys coracoideus fry from most of the unhatched eggs by moving the fry and some eggs to a Ziss BL-2 breeder box. The motivation for this is that the German breeder ring has a mesh floor, so water flows up/down past the eggs, whereas the Ziss BL-2 box has a solid floor, so that food, particularly live microworms, won't fall through floor.

Moving hatched Auchenipterichthys coracoideus to Ziss BL-2 breeder box

[Jools]

How are you getting on with growing them out? It'd be interesting to learn if there is a problem with predation.

Cheers,

Jools

[bekateen]

How are you getting on with growing them out? It'd be interesting to learn if there is a problem with predation.

Cheers,
Jools

Time will tell. These are the first Auchenipterichthys coracoideus fry I've gotten since 2019. I've got a lot more hatchlings this time, even before the second spawn hatches (which should be soon), so there's lots of opportunities to eat siblings if they want to.

I can say that the

Amblydoras nauticus

do not appear to eat their siblings, even when there is a significant difference in size.

Cheers, Eric

[bekateen]

I divided the older Auchenipterichthys coracoideus fry from most of the unhatched eggs by moving the fry and some eggs to a Ziss BL-2 breeder box. The motivation for this is that the German breeder ring has a mesh floor, so water flows up/down past the eggs, whereas the Ziss BL-2 box has a solid floor, so that food, particularly live microworms, won't fall through floor.

Moving hatched Auchenipterichthys coracoideus to Ziss BL-2 breeder box

I'm not sure how they managed, but over half of my hatched fry escaped the Ziss box, so for now I've moved the remaining fry in the box back to the breeder ring.

Ugh.

[bekateen]

Another fresh spawn today. I checked this morning and didn't see any eggs then, so I'm thinking this spawn occurred during the daytime.

Cheers, Eric

[bekateen]

These Zamora woodcats are on a roll. Another spawn today. That's four spawns since January 10! And as with the last spawn, this spawn occurred during the day, while I was at work.

• 10 January
  • 8 day interval
• 18 January
  • 8 day interval
• 26 January
  • 10 day interval
• 05 February

Cheers, Eric

Direct link: Auchenipterichthys coracoideus four spawns in 27 days!

[bekateen]

A little early on this spawn... almost like clockwork! Seven days since the last spawn, a new spawn this afternoon while I was at work.

• 10 January
  • 8 day interval
• 18 January
  • 8 day interval
• 26 January
  • 10 day interval
• 05 February
  • 7 day interval
• 12 February

The eggs from the 05 February spawn just finished hatching yesterday.

Cheers, Eric

[bekateen]

Tonight here's what I found (pictured): I collected 70 good eggs and some bad eggs too (the latter not collected intentionally), but there are more eggs loose in the tank. Based on my experience with the last few spawns, I expect I'll be able to get 15-25 more tomorrow morning... not that I expect the parents to lay more eggs overnight (especially since the last three spawns have been in daylight hours) but rather that more of the eggs already loose in the tank will drift onto the sponge filter where I'll find them more easily.

Edit. Later tonight I got 15 more good eggs, total good 85 eggs.

Cheers, Eric

[bekateen]

This morning I collected 31 more good eggs out of the tank, and removed about 8 bad eggs from the eggs I collected last night.

Also, here's a bad pic of a few of the fry from the January 18th spawn. In total, from the first three spawns this year, I think I have about 250 (+/-50) fry growing out. I'm feeding them frozen baby brine shrimp twice daily in the Ziss BL-2 breeder box. I added several magnolia leaves (each broken in half), and the babies hide between the leaves, then come out like gangbusters when the frozen BBS are dropped in.

Edit: At 7pm tonight, I collected 26 more eggs and removed 4 more bad eggs. In total, I now have about 130 good eggs from this spawn.

[bekateen]

Auchenipterichthys coracoideus fry, moments after hatching. The curly white lines around it are live microworms.

Cheers,
Eric

[bekateen]

The clockwork continues, still in the quick side (7 days).

• 10 January - about 42 good eggs collected
  • 8 day interval
• 18 January - about 160 good eggs collected
  • 8 day interval
• 26 January - egg count not recorded
  • 10 day interval
• 05 February - egg count not recorded
  • 7 day interval
• 12 February - about 130 good eggs collected
  • 7 day interval
• 19 February - 92 eggs after initial collection

On my initial recovery, I collected 92 good eggs. Lots of bad ones in the tank which I left behind, and I confirmed my suspicion about the canister filter intake being a villain‐ I saw two good eggs get sucked through the intake screen. I need to put a sponge pre-filter on the canister filter.

On the other hand, expecting more eggs to be recovered as the evening goes on and when tomorrow arrives, do I need any more eggs? The prior 5 spawns are growing very well, with little mortality after the first 2 weeks.

As a side note, I looked back at my original spawns from this group. The first spawn was probably a day or two old when I discovered the eggs. The second spawn was 7 days after I found the first eggs. So the inter-spawn interval was about 8 +/- 1 days, just as it is again with these last six spawns.

Cheers, Eric

[bekateen]

Added 12 more good eggs before bed tonight. Total good eggs, 104.

• 10 January - about 42 good eggs collected
  • 8 day interval
• 18 January - about 160 good eggs collected
  • 8 day interval
• 26 January - egg count not recorded
  • 10 day interval
• 05 February - egg count not recorded
  • 7 day interval
• 12 February - about 130 good eggs collected
  • 7 day interval
• 19 February - about 104 good eggs collected

Edit: the next morning (20 February), I removed about 10 bad eggs, but did not have time to harvest any more good eggs from the tank. I see them in the tank, but didn't catch any. Will do so tonight.

[bekateen]

Sadly, the pattern has broken. I did a water change on 25 February. It was the first WC since before my 10 January spawn. I wondered if that would either trigger the next spawn or alter the water quality and stop the spawning. Maybe it mattered; maybe it didn't... but the result is no new spawn. It's been 11 days.

Not that I needed more eggs, but I was hoping the adults would maintain the patter longer.

All that said, I recall that my Dekeyseria picta would spawn 3 or 4 times on schedule, then take a break of about an extra week before restarting the pattern... as if the females' ovaries needed some time off. That may be what's happening here, if it's not come to a grinding halt altogether.

But it may not matter. I'll be ignoring the fish for over a week due to other upcoming obligations, so if they spawned in the next few days I probably can't take care of the eggs anyway. I'll let the parents have 2 weeks off, then we'll be anxious for spawns again.

Cheers, Eric

[bekateen]

Cessation of spawning aside, the fry from the six spawns are doing great! I suspect I have at least 400 babies growing out. I'm moving them to a 40 gallon tank soon. The Ziss breeder box is way too crowded.

Cheers, Eric

[bekateen]

I spoke(posted) too soon about them breaking the pattern... Tonight, finally, I found the next spawn, albeit 12 days since the last spawn. Many of these eggs are bad, but there are plenty of good eggs scattered in the tank. Will collect the eggs in the morning to get a count of good eggs.

• 10 January - about 42 good eggs collected
  • 8 day interval
• 18 January - about 160 good eggs collected
  • 8 day interval
• 26 January - egg count not recorded
  • 10 day interval
• 05 February - egg count not recorded
  • 7 day interval
• 12 February - about 130 good eggs collected
  • 7 day interval
• 19 February - about 104 good eggs collected
  • 12 day interval
• 02 March

Maybe this does continue a pattern, but it's not the pattern I expected: maybe the patten is that they can spawn 3x about a week apart, then they need a longer break (10-12 days) before the next cycle begins again.

Cheers, Eric

[bekateen]

On Monday, 18 March I got home from an amazing 11-day whirlwind trip to Scotland and England. Personal details will be left out here, but I had a great time seeing everyone and attending the CSG convention.

There were no new eggs on 08 March when I left, but when I got home, I found a bunch of fungused eggs in the tank. I haven't searched for any good eggs yet but the fungused eggs look three or more days old, based on how far gone they are. Later today I'll search for good eggs. If I find any, I'll be able to better estimate their age by when they hatch. If I find no good eggs, that means they already hatched, which also narrows down the spawn date. I'll update the spawning history estimate after the search.

Cheers,
Eric

[bekateen]

I didn't find even one good unhatched egg in tank. These new bad eggs are therefore at least 5 days old, which narrows the possible spawning date to 09-13 March:

• 10 January - about 42 good eggs collected
  • 8 day interval
• 18 January - about 160 good eggs collected
  • 8 day interval
• 26 January - egg count not recorded
  • 10 day interval
• 05 February - egg count not recorded
  • 7 day interval
• 12 February - about 130 good eggs collected
  • 7 day interval
• 19 February - about 104 good eggs collected
  • 12 day interval
• 02 March
  • 7-11 day interval (estimate)
• 09 - 13 March (estimate) - spawn missed (good eggs hatched before I found them)

[bekateen]

New spawn today while I was at work. It's rare for me to find woodcats spawning in daytime. I wish I were home to record it one of these days.

• 10 January - about 42 good eggs collected
  • 8 day interval
• 18 January - about 160 good eggs collected
  • 8 day interval
• 26 January - egg count not recorded
  • 10 day interval
• 05 February - egg count not recorded
  • 7 day interval
• 12 February - about 130 good eggs collected
  • 7 day interval
• 19 February - about 104 good eggs collected
  • 12 day interval
• 02 March - egg count not recorded
  • 7-11 day interval (estimate)
• 09 - 13 March (estimate) - spawn missed
  • 12-16 day interval (estimate)
• 25 March - will wait at least a day to collect eggs

[bekateen]

Just got home late Sunday from the Northeast Council of Aquarium Societies-NEC annual convention. Didn't buy any fish this weekend, but I did come home to find eggs in the Auchenipterichthys coracoideus tank. So they spawned either Friday, Saturday or Sunday, probably not Sunday since the eggs don't look brand new.

05 - 07 April - spawned (11-13 day interval since prior spawn)