The challenge part 2

[Cory_lover]

So my hoplos have spawned again last week, I noticed this time round there were slightly fewer eggs, and I suspect its due to the fact that the pair have been spawning every monday night for the past 2 weeks, so maybe she's just running outta steam. Again, I left the eggs with the male for 1 night, but by the next day he had eaten all but 3, which is friggin annoying!

so deciding to save the last 3 eggs, I followed "Hoplo's" advice, and transfered them to another tank with a sponge filter flowing over the eggs, but i think they were either infertile or the water flow was inadequate, but they fungused and died on me. I'm not sure exactly how much water flow I should be having, but this time I thought there was sufficient water flow over the eggs because in addition to the sponge filter's outflow over the eggs, there's an adjacent airstone as well. Tank's temperature's constant at 24-25degC.

I'm giving the pair a 2weeks break this time round, and see what happens at the next spawning

[ozarowana]

Yes I tried the water flowing over the eggs in a seperate tank. I have a feeling the male isn't fertilising properly, which is not uncommon for fish starting to spawn for the first time.

Fish laid again all over the tank. Removed the eggs and am hatching in another tank with water flowing over them. They appear to be going a bit darker so fingers crossed this time.

[L number Banana]

I think I have 3 males and two females. Three have nice red pec fin spines and two have a little belly and a big space between the 'bones' underneath.
I'm throwing in the lid - wish them luck.

Does anyone know if female M. thoracatas get only a bit of a belly instead of a giant bump like otos and corys? The spawning photos show a somewhat less pronounced belly on the female than what I expected but that's what mine look like at the moment, maybe even a bit more 'fat' in that area.

[Cory_lover]

Hey L Number Banana!

the 'bones' you're referring to are the coracoid bones, and only develops extensively in sexually mature males. I noticed that when mine were spawning, they grew even slightly larger, and completely closed the gap inbetween. Now that he's not in spawning mode, the gap's back, so my guess is that it grows to aid the male in building his nest, warding off intruders, and also to support his lengthened pectoral spine.

Secondly, when my female spawned, she had a slight belly, but not as obvious as in otos. Besides her general 'roundness', her belly was only enlarged in the ventral region near her pelvic fins, and thus her 2 rows of lateral body scutes did not entirely cover her belly down the side. Hope this made sense! l0l

Do you keep the 3males and 2 females all in one tank? I don't have that many spawning pairs (I only have 1), but i think that may be too many for 1 breeding tank as the males do get extremely protective of the area surrounding his nest. Even in nature, bubble nests are found with a distance of 10m apart from the next one.

[L number Banana]

Thanks Cory_lover

Do you keep the 3males and 2 females all in one tank? I don't have that many spawning pairs (I only have 1), but i think that may be too many for 1 breeding tank as the males do get extremely protective of the area surrounding his nest. Even in nature, bubble nests are found with a distance of 10m apart from the next one.

Yes I do but it's only been in the last while that I could figure out who is who because I bought them quite small. One male got his red parts a while ago but the others only last week. Same for the females getting a bit of a belly. I've never seen any spawning activity or nest building action but I only put the lid in yesterday. I'll see about finding a place to put two of the males for a while. Other tanks are warmer so it may be a little while before that gets worked out.

Good explanation about the bones etc, makes sense. The possible females have those bones but they're small and way out at the sides. The males are as you say, touching in the middle. I'll look for the scutes and see what's happening there. One of the bigger ones is probably a female so I should be able to get a good look at those. I'm still handfeeding them so it's pretty easy to get them right up to the glass.

Maybe those my extra tanks will come in handy sooner than I thought..

[L number Banana]

He's building a bubble nest!!!

It's the male in the small tank with the two females. Both females have the belly that looks big only in the place below the plates. Looks kind of funny compared to a gravid cory where the whole middle looks bigger. You can really tell when you see them beside the male at feeding time and their ventral area is against the glass.

No eggs anywhere and the bubble nest is under the lid with only a cm or so of bubbles around the outside. I didn't see it there yesterday.

I watched for quite a while and can't tell if the male is pursuing females that come close or if he's chasing them away?? Either way, there's no T position or anything like that. Maybe he's not finished his nest yet.

Fingers crossed.

[Carp37]

Great news L Number Banana- best of luck.

Finally (a couple of months later than planned) I've managed to get rid of some juvenile bristlenose and free up a couple of tanks, so I've transferred a male and female hoplo to a 30X12X15" tank and put in a sponge filter (but the filter's brand new so, I'll need to keep the power filter in for a couple of weeks). It's amazing how small a 30" tank looks with two unhappy 4"+ SL hoplos charging up and down in an unhappy mood- hopefully they'll settle better soon.

How have people decorated their breeding tanks? Mine's just got a piece of slate and a lump of mopani wood in at the moment, plus a smattering of gravel and a plastic floating plant- I might need to give them more cover. I'm intending to add a lid when I can remove the power filter.

[L number Banana]

Carp37, you could try making them more comfy with some live food maybe? Help them settle in a bit?

I don't have cover except for skimpy plants in my 20 gal and the ones in the bigger tank have large granite chunks. there's a couple caves but they like the 'open' area in the back corner behind some large rocks. Those ones are still skittish from the move and have only recently started to take food from me again.

Tank one with the bubble nest has already gone kaplouie. The bubble nest is totally gone. But at least I know now that he can build them.

[grokefish]

Hey L,

Thats pretty exciting isn't it.
I still can't find any and am too busy to go on an expedition around the country to find some
I'm taking 5 weeks off starting tomorrow so maybe I'll get some on my adventures in the south west country (Devon and Cornwall)
Hope so.
Any ideas what the next challenge is going to be yet, sorry I haven't been able to keep up with this thread, concentrating on fighting the recession...........close to going bust this time last month

Matt

[L number Banana]

Hi Matt,

Hey L,

Thats pretty exciting isn't it.

They're really beautiful fish. Even my non-fish friends like them. Don't know if I'll ever get past the bubble-building efforts but it's very cool to watch! Good that you haven't got challenge 3 figured out yet, I'm a little skint on tank space at the moment and I've still got P. pictus coming in 'at some point'.

concentrating on fighting the recession...........close to going bust this time last month

Oh that really sucks. Too bad you weren't one of those billionaire bankers that got a bonus for ****'ing everything up to begin with. Here's my recession fighter: buy C.paleatus, let them make bbs and you never have to pay full price for fish food again. I've also started putting stuff on ebay again Every bit helps.

Good luck with your adventures & time off

[Carp37]

Has anyone got as far as hatching these yet? Quite a few of us seem to have got eggs, but I don't think anyone's reported fry hatching.

My pair must have spawned the night before last as I've now got eggs on the lid. I've never been sure if he's been building a bubble nest as the flake tub lid always has bubbles under it, and I've never been sure if the sponge filter bubbles hadn't just filled it up! I noticed the male's behaviour was a little different to usual- when he saw me enter the room he still looked hungry (big surprise!) but he was quartering the area under the lid and looking more intent than usual. The tank was due a water change, but his behaviour prompted me to check under the lid, and as reported, there were eggs stuck there (looked quite a low number- probably 30 or so). I'm not expecting anything from this spawning, and have left the pair in the tank for now as the male didn't seem to be being aggressive tot he female, other than keeping her away from the lid.

On a less positive note, I lost one of my nine fish last week, she was begging for food in the morning, then upside down on the gravel in the evening when I got home.

[mummymonkey]

My "pair" of pectorale turned out to be 2 males so I have sold them.
Back to the drawing board for me.

[Carp37]

...and the eggs are gone this evening! I can't say I'm too surprised, although at least I know they will spawn in that tank.

[Shane]

I love this thread. Will the winner please pick something I can collect (no fish stores here) so I can play too
-Shane

[Birger]

Mine are finally approaching maturity so maybe I still have a chance.

I love this thread. Will the winner please pick something I can collect (no fish stores here) so I can play too
-Shane

Hmmm maybe you could collect something and send them around

Birger

[grokefish]

Dammit, just missed some likely candidates on e-bay, did anyone here get them?

Matt

[worton[pl]]

Hey,

my fishroom is almost done.
One shelf with 6 120l tanks is standing. Now I'm doing electricity and installing water changing system to them and will get my pair from my friend . Hopefully in two weeks

Regards.

[L number Banana]

No luck here. Lots of bubble blowing in the small tank but never any eggs. The male recently flipped his tail to hard that I got soaked when I lifted the lid. Maybe he was trying to tell me to stop checking. I now have a dentist mirror to look underneath without touching it.

Tiny bubbles....in the dish....make me happy.....for eggs, I wish.
*Must be sung with a ukulele.

[Carp37]

I now have a dentist mirror to look underneath without touching it.

I can see underneath the lid (sort of, whilst being quite uncomfortable), but all I can see are bubbles (or very occasionally a lack of bubbles!). They totally obscure any sign of the bottom of the lid (and the eggs); I was expecting the bubbles to be much smaller than they were. I'm wondering if my pair's spawned before and I've missed it. For a few days before they spawned the male was sort of half-heartedly following the female at times, but he sort of does this anyway in case she finds any food he's missed.

[worton[pl]]

Hello,

what kind of filtration are you using in your breeding tanks? I just wonder what filter should I install to not disturb water surface too much.

Regards.

[L number Banana]

Hi worton[pl],

I'm now using a small HOB Whisper 30 and I think it's too much movement so sometime this week, I'm going back to the plain ol' powerhead with a long sponge on the outlet. Easy to wash if needed and will trap microorganisms and good bacteria. I use the kind that comes with tabletop fountains, they're about $10 and the 'filters' are found in pool supply stores or you can DIY. I just plunk it on the bottom with the inlet facing out so no sand etc get sucked in. It was at the opposite end of the area where the cats built their bubblenest.

Mine haven't been successful yet - I should say I haven't been successful yet - so don't take this as gospel. I look forward to seeing what other folks are using too.

[Carp37]

In response to Worton, I'm just using a standard sponge filter (the a sponge going horizontally along the bottom of the tank with an uplift tube) and a moderate air pump.

My pair have spawned again, but it's not all good news as the female appears to be going blind- she's got two white circles around the lens in both eyes . I was a bit dubious about the water quality, but testing suggests it's uncannily like most of my other tanks- 25-50 ppm nitrate, no ammo or nitrite, pH c. 6.5, fairly hard on GH but very low on KH (or the opposite- I never can remember which my water's hard for!).

I find it impossible to see if there are any eggs on the fish food lid when there are bubbles on it without lifting a corner of the lid up slightly, which makes the bubbles disappear if they're not fresh! I only checked this time as they were due a water change, and the male's been playing with the lid a bit, shoving it round the tank like he's playing trains. It's really surprised me that he's done this- I was expecting him to regard the nest as a fixed point, but it definitely appears to be deliberate how he moves it if it drifts into an inappropriate spot. Fortunately he quickly repaired his nest- now it looks like a proper bubble nest, with lots of small, sticky bubbles rather than just one big, non-sticky bubble under the lid.

There were a few small endlers I'd left in the tank from previously- I removed all bar one of these (which evaded capture). It shows how small male endlers are because my male glowlight tetras started trying to catch them in the tank I moved them to.

Trying to catch the female failed as the male belatedly started showing strong defensive behaviour, barrelling into the net each time I tried to put it in the tank. I need to move the remaining endler, plus I suspect both parents (I don't know how old the eggs are- possibly several days), but have a problem at the moment as my other spare tank has had a heater failure- according to the CateLog hoplos can cope with it at room temperature, but I don't want to shock the pair, especially when one's already under the weather.

[Carp37]

I came home tonight determined to move my pair (moving the eggs, which would seem easiest, isn't possible as the fish food lid is too big to get in a container thin enough to squeeze under the top tank- this was a planning problem!), and the eggs have gone again!

At least they got their water change...

[Proteus]

don't want to sound dumb but the problem is the fungus that keeps affecting the majority of everyones eggs? what have you guys attempted to do to prevent the fungus from happening?

[Proteus]

update please, folks

[L number Banana]

Proteus:

update please, folks

Nothing to update except that one of my M.thoracata succumbed to either velvet, ich or ich/velvet medication
Seems I've managed to pick it up somewhere and transfer it to both big tanks even with all the normal precautions, I messed up somewhere.
The one left in that tank will be going back into the small tank with the male and two females. I'll do that once I make sure she's very healthy again.

The three in the smaller tank are doing well and look great but are forever blowing very small bubble nests with no eggs. The nests fill up about half of a plastic lid and then are gone in the morning. I'm not seeing any eggs ever and have tried different temps, current/no current/in between. With and without lots of plants.With airstone and without,with regular filter and without. Etc.

I'm now just leaving them alone and if they want kids, they'll get around to it someday. In the meantime, I look under the lid quite often without disturbing it and just enjoy their company. Still a very cool and active fish, they just like the single life.

[grokefish]

I still have only one but at least I know it is a male now.

[worton[pl]]

Hey,

well I have 1 male and 3 fully mature females in my Q-tank now.
Male is trying to build a nest but in this tank he won't success .
Tomorrow I'm going to move them to their own tank as they show no sickness and have great apetites .
Hopefully I will have nest full of babies in no time . Females are really fat creatures .

Regards.

[MatsP]

I have finally found a male M. thoracata - but not set up a breeding tank yet.

--
Mats

[Carp37]

Mine laid eggs again last Friday night/Saturday morning, so I removed the female this time. A day later the bubblenest was gone and no eggs! At the moment the fish are back in the 5' community tank and I'm giving them a break for a couple of weeks.

I don't think fungus is a problem with "my" eggs- the eggs seem to darken and look fertile, but the male and female have a habit of eating them. The problem I've got is seeing when eggs are laid- when the bubblenest is built it's impossible to see if eggs are present or not, and lifting the lid destroys the bubblenest. The bubblenest also seems to decay without the males attention, so I'm not sure if it will hold up long enough if I remove the male and female immediately after spawning.

I also seem to have got a hydra infestation in their tank- I'm not sure how, as I've not bought any fish or tank decor since March last year and never seen hydra before- maybe they're resistant to chlorine and come in via tap water?