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Pics of what we counted total of 36 in fry save that will be released back into tank tomorrow.
Pm I cant put other pics on here why I don't now but it to do with my side of things and ill show you the tank setup and colour of tank when feeding to get a better picture of it all.
Just good feeding regime and water changes they done the rest themselves,heavy male fights to start with but once that had got sorted out then things went hunky dory and they've bred ever since.
Water soft ph about 6.5 ppm 40-50 tap water filtered threw hma heated to a temp 20- 28 pending what else im water changing at the time also.

That's two vastly different water readings. I think I'm just going to see what mine are going to do. The feeding tip is a good one though and appreciated. Mine have stopped arguing and the mrs now hangs out close to the cave while the male is messing around in them

One thing i did notice, and I'd be interested if anyone else will see this, is that one of my fry is quite a bit bigger than the rest, 50% at least.

Wijnands the only thing im noticing is there stretching more than actually filling out.
I had these donkey years ago and it was the same then ,they never started to fill out proper till about 8 months old , all these lot are looking like going the same way.

Since you have so much experience with them. What's your view on breeding? I know my fish came from a small scale breeder in Germany somewhere so there's a chance these might actually be related already.

Breeding as in ???? what info wijnands

What difference 2 letters make..

I meant to ask inbreeding. The adult fish I have now may or may not be related to each other, there's no way to tell. The offspring that's swimming around now certainly are related. How much of an issue is this going to be?

I've been busy a few days but here is the last update for now. I've decided to set them free in the adult tank, hoping they will follow their parents eating behavior.
I guess I will not see them for a while

Day 9



Day 11

Wijnands i dare say inbreeding will affect the bred of whatever it is that is being bred by the same ofspring time and time again things like deformaties, stubbyness,colours life span and more will creep in and the end result i dare say will be to cull fish.
Ideally you want as much good and different parentage threw lines to keep it strong etc
But im afraid some fish can be very hard to obtain so inbreeding does occur but its always best in my opinion to source or to have as much different linage if poss for future sake of the species.
This is just how i look at things, but unless you like close line breeding for a certain trait in whatever it is your breeding then try stick to as many different parents as poss is the best outcome really

Yeah, makes sense I suppose. Ah well, I'll just have to beg jac then.

Day 20 and still going

And a nice string of poo which is good.

I did my tank maintenance this weekend and noticed that for some reason my tank was at 25c (not entirely happy with that new eheim heater). Dropped it to 22c and did my water change. Seems to have triggered something since the male is now fanning eggs again

The fry are still doing great!!

During my maintenance this morning I found 2 eggs in the sand. I did notice they were frisky again a few days ago, active fanning and females around the caves. Never saw the trapping, again... The eggs seem to be about 2 days old. No sign of other eggs. They still have to learn a lot....

This is a few pics of latest batches due to be released into main tank either tomorrow or the following day.

That's a big batch. My second clutch left the cave about a week ago. This bunch is a lot more intelligent, I'm even seeing them on the courgette already. The first clutch it took months before they figured out that vegetables are edible.



Biggest one of the july clutch is now slightly bigger than a female corydoras pygmaeus


DSC_1748 by j_wijnands, on Flickr

Wijnands there actually 3 differents spawns in that container there aged a few days apart now there all joining up together theres also prob another 4 spawns in the tank itself about there age again these lot of eggs were kicked out yet again because of too many batches in caves for the males to take care without male kicking them out.
Heres a few more of them a few days before, plus a few of older young currently getting very good growth ready for sale .

The Young pictures these are easily the inch mark now.

How long did yours take to grow to an inch?

Going by ones in these pics they were end/start of December/January batches easily over the inch mark body length and really showing good markings and colours so thats roughly 3 month max give or take a bit to the inch mark with the way I do things.