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Both times the eggs were already hatching when I discovered them. Does the female wait that long before she lays the eggs? Then they're almost livebearers!

that makes sense! the whole issue with internal fertilisation is to avoid exposion of the eggs to predators over a long time.
avoiding that is one way to ensure more fry survives.
it's also a step in the direction of a live bearing catfish....

the Poeciliidae took that road a few million years ago and there are species that lay eggs that pop open as soon as they leave the mothers' body, but other Cyprinodonts already evolved into true livebearing fish (the Goodeids).

in time -or perhaps there's already such a fish, undiscovered!- there's likely to be livebearing Auchenipterids.
all the mechanisms are in place......

More eggs were discovered today (the third time in four weeks):



The eggs are already hatching. This time I'm going to leave them where they are.

I'll bet you can supply any catfishkeeper in Scandinavia with Tatia-fry now and still have a surplus.


well, it IS spawning season for South American fish (rainy season has started), but these Tatia's are going for the records I think.

My goodness, Daniel! This is fabulous!
Amanda

Here's a short QT-movie of some of the younger fry.
This weekend they're moving from a 10g tank to a 200g. At last, no more daily water changes!

Three months old, 40 mm SL:

I've just caught up with this thread and so I read through it all.
Amazing stuff.
On the point you make about stalking with a flash light.
I use actinic blue tubes at night and all my catfish come out quite happily in it. It's much easier than a flashlight and it only takes the fish a few weeks to get used to it although you have to leave it on all night for the first couple of weeks and you have got to mask off much of the light to stop it being to bright until after about a year when the tubes are no longer new and then the light is perfect.. These tubes are marketed as moonlight tubes and they are an excelent adition to the woodcat/doradid keepers setup.
Matt

Dang-it (not my first choice of words BTW!)

And here yet again I have a female repeatedly ballooning up with eggs, digging nest pits and being thin in the morning and yet I can't find any d@$* eggs!

This has happened to me several times in the past 13 or so years that I have kept Tatia, and I have yet to find eggs or fry.

Congrats, but you absolutely killing me given what's been happening in my tanks over the past month or so!

Today I sold the first of the juveniles on an auction.
I expected a lot of trouble catching a dozen quick and shy Tatias in a 1000 litre tank.
I picked up a piece of driftwood, turned it upside down over a bucket - and out came these:

I really like the looks of that. I (still) think you should write an article on this subject. It'll make great reading and watching for many PC people.

Marc van Arc wrote:I really like the looks of that. I (still) think you should write an article on this subject. It'll make great reading and watching for many PC people.

Yeah but no but yeah but no but I am - in Swedish, for the Nordic catfish magazine Malbiten. Someday I'll find time to translate parts of it.

Right now there are lots of newly hatched fry in the tank - plus three(!) batches of eggs on the bottom.
Too bad the demand in Sweden for Tatia intermedia has been met...

excellent posting good work and congrats on the multiple spawnings

I have had some limited success with spawning T. intermedia although I haven't yet raised any fry.
I have so far had three batches of eggs over a period of a year, each batch was laid near the water's surface in amonst plants. Were yours laid on the bottom due to not having dense plants at the top of the tank or are females "individuals", each having a preferred site?
Water parameters are around PH 6.1 - PH 6.5, temp. 76, and water quite hard.
The first two spawnings were removed to a small container for hatching, the eggs being scooped up in one hand, much like handling frog's spawn. However, this is where I think I went wrong as there were too many eggs in a small body of water.
The first batch hatched but I lost the fry within a few days, probably due to water conditions deteriorating. The second batch failed to hatch, again due to poor water conditions.
The latest batch, laid just three days ago have been distributed around three tanks as a precaution.
What surprised me was seeing the female lying amonst the eggs in the plants, probably slowly releasing the eggs.
I would agree with other contributors that the jelly surrounding the eggs protects them from fungus and predation, although I would state that the eggs laid are NOT developed, ie: Only a yolk sac is visible, much the same as any other egglaying species.

Mark

Have you considered gentle siphoning of the egg mass into a netbreeder in which the bottom of the net is already submerged, then suspending them in the spawning tank? Be sure they receive a good supply of current to simulate the female's fanning.

I can see where artificial hatching of Tatia eggs presents special challanges.

Good suggestion, I may try this next time if the current batch fails, although it is easier to grab them all rather than siphoning (they are tough and they all tend to stick together!).

Mark

Hi!!

I remember once having found the eggs of T. perugiae out and put them in a floating nursery, with an airstone, was pretty amazed on how resistent could these eggs been...all hatched without losing one. I would have done the same with Corydoras or Loricariidae eggs, all would have fungus and turned white, so actually find them to be really quite hardy...

Cheer
Yann

Eggs have hatched, fry had yolk sac for a week, now feeding on microworm.

Mark

so any thoughts as to the trigger to these things breeding?

Enough specimens, proper & diverse feeding and good water conditions will do the trick ime. Regular water changes are appreciated. I get the impression that they are able to spawn constantly and aren't restricted to a season.

Just caught up on this thread. Amazing achievement! Please keep the updates coming.
-Shane

I've been following this thread for a while, it reminds me why we keep fish and why I run this website.

So, I guess I will add to everyones else's comments saying please do email me pictures, I can also use videos and an article either a catfish of the month or indeed something to put into Shane's World would be very welcome indeed.

Well done Daniel!


Jools

I get the impression that they are able to spawn constantly and aren't restricted to a season.

this might also be caused by the fact that the tanks are run with parameters compatible with the rainy seasons.

think in terms of day-length, temperature, hardiness etc.
the fidh might feel like it's an eternal "september in brasil" and keep on staying in spawn-mode.

some catfishes have clearly a well-run inner clock, especially wildcaughts and F1's. Callichthydae and Loricariids are notorious in this aspect.
maybe these Auchenipterids are not like this and are more flexible with their spawnings, any time the circumstances are OK they can switch into spawning mode

this makes sense in a way; Callichthyds and Loricariids are in here for the long run. many species easily reach 10-15 years or more, so they have plenty oppertunities in the rain seasons.
these tiny Auchenipterids give me the impression of a life-in-the-fast-lane catfish.
like the smaller Schilbeids (pareutropius for example), small Silurids (kryptopterus), small Bagrids (Nanobagrus etc) none of these are fish that live for 15 years. so spawn succesfully they might be more oppertunistic and hence have a more flexible approach to spawning activities

Marc, this might also be the cause of one of your problems: intraspecific agression between the Tatia's.
if they keep "being stuck" in spawning mode, they also keep being stuck in fighting mode. spawning time is the time when males will fight much harder for territory, females to mate with and females will fight harder for territory to lay eggs and food to get gravid.
by keeping these fish in a perpetual rainseason you might end up with agressionlevels not seen in the wild.