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sturiosoma wrote: ↑26 Feb 2023, 16:39Hey Eric have you ever thought of with you having a greenhouse to put one of your spare breeder boxes and who doesn't have a spare in the greenhouse and allow it to fester sort of speak for those unplanned spawns

Jeanne

Hi Jeanne,

That's exactly what I did to grow the algae on the plastic plates. I have a breeder box with plastic plates inside in a greenhouse tank to culture algae. I put multiple plates in there so I can pull out a different plate every few days.


But I don't put the babies out there for a few reasons. First, the greenhouse is not thermally stable, and with new babies (especially with a first-time spawn for me, regarding the lanceolata), I want them to have a stable environment. Second, on the advice of other whiptail breeders and based on my experience with eigenmanni over the last couple of years, microworms are a first choice food for these fry (unlike, for example, other species that might prefer algae over an omnivorous diet), and I have a stable cultures of microworms both at home for eigenmanni and at work for lanceolata. Finally, I feed the fry at least twice a day, but I only get to go to the greenhouse once a day at most; again on advice from other breeders, a constant supply of food is critical for food survival, therefore I keep the fry close to me at work.

From your questions, I'm inferring that your experience says algae is the "go-to" food for baby whiptails; is that right?

Cheers, Eric

No not algae alone but from my experience with my eigenmanni spawn they spend a large amount of time on the walls of the breeder box, so if the entire box had a growth of algae they could feed off that along with the micro worms and have you observed their nighttime behavior, do they come off the walls and go to the bottom to feed

Jeanne

sturiosoma wrote: ↑26 Feb 2023, 22:56 No not algae alone but from my experience with my eigenmanni spawn they spend a large amount of time on the walls of the breeder box, so if the entire box had a growth of algae they could feed off that along with the micro worms and have you observed their nighttime behavior, do they come off the walls and go to the bottom to feed

Jeanne

Yes, after lights go off (and in morning when I leave them alone), they do come off the walls and go to the bottom to feed.

After about 2 weeks of age, my eigenmanni spend most of the daytime under the oak leaves. Only about 25% of the fry are on the walls of the tank. When I awake in the morning and first turn the room lights on, almost all the babies are out on the floor of the breeder box looking for food. Then when I add the food, it scares them and about half scurry under the leaves, then come out later.

Cheers, Eric

The second spawn, if following the incubation schedule of the first spawn, should have started hatching overnight Tuesday and finished overnight Wednesday (March 8 ). But no. The eggs started hatching overnight Wednesday and are still in progress today (Saturday, March 11)! So far, only about 30 eggs have hatched as of today, and dad still has a lot of eggs. If they finish hatching overnight tonight, it will have been 15 to 15.5 days for hatching! Dang that's a long time. Aquarium conditions haven't changed, so IDK why they took so long!

I left town for 5 days on March 15; at that time, the dad with spawn #2 was still sitting on A LOT of eggs, even though there were plenty of babies already hatched and swimming around the box. I left a student to take care of the fry and watch for dad to finish hatching the eggs while I was gone. He reported that dad finally finished hatching eggs on March 16. That means it was 19 days from the time I first found eggs on Feb 25 until we found all the eggs had hatched. Given that the first batch hatched in 11-12 days, that really makes me think this second spawn is two spawns a week apart with the same dad in the same cave. But is it with the same mom or different moms? I have 3 males and 3 females, so...???

Today is one month since the first spawn hatched. Both spawns are doing well.

I don't want to sound greedy, but I was expecting the parents to have spawned again by now.

Cheers, Eric

bekateen wrote: ↑23 Mar 2023, 00:35I don't want to sound greedy, but I was expecting the parents to have spawned again by now.

Cheers, Eric

Apparently I spoke too soon! New spawn in progress this morning, 2023-03-23!

This morning, after I fed the babies from the first two sets of babies, I was rethinking the weird dynamic of the second spawn:

• The first eggs started hatching on day 12 of incubation, a day later than the first spawn (that in itself is no big deal). However,...
• By day 17 of incubation, there were already 60-70 fry in the box and lots of fry had escaped the box. But there were still LOTS of unhatched eggs.
• It was 19 days until all of the eggs finished hatching.
• Today I attempted to count the fry. There are over 200 fry (!) in the box, not including fry that got loose in the tank (which I didn't attempt to collect, since I have so many already in the fry basket, not to mention the 100 still in the box from the first spawn).

Now I'm really wondering if there were two spawns with the same dad in the same bamboo, about one week apart. I don't know the max clutch size of Rineloricaria lanceolata, and our BLOG input system only allows a maximum of 100 eggs - any count over that is rejected. But I had about 115 fry from the first spawn so I know the clutch size is at least that. I also know with many species, subsequent clutch sizes increase as the females grow in age and ovary size, so I don't know if 200+ babies reflects two spawns of about 100 each, or one giant spawn of over 200 fry.

If there were two spawns with the same dad in the same bamboo last time, then it would mean the spawn from yesterday is spawn #4, not #3.

Does anyone know the max clutch size for this species? What's the biggest R. lanceolata spawn you've had or have heard about?

Cheers, Eric

bekateen wrote: ↑24 Mar 2023, 18:06 This morning, after I fed the babies from the first two sets of babies, I was rethinking the weird dynamic of the second spawn:

• The first eggs started hatching on day 12 of incubation, a day later than the first spawn (that in itself is no big deal). However,...
• By day 17 of incubation, there were already 60-70 fry in the box and lots of fry had escaped the box. But there were still LOTS of unhatched eggs.
• It was 19 days until all of the eggs finished hatching.
• Today I attempted to count the fry. There are over 200 fry (!) in the box, not including fry that got loose in the tank (which I didn't attempt to collect, since I have so many already in the fry basket, not to mention the 100 still in the box from the first spawn).

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Now I'm really wondering if there were two spawns with the same dad in the same bamboo, about one week apart. I don't know the max clutch size of Rineloricaria lanceolata, and our BLOG input system only allows a maximum of 100 eggs - any count over that is rejected. But I had about 115 fry from the first spawn so I know the clutch size is at least that. I also know with many species, subsequent clutch sizes increase as the females grow in age and ovary size, so I don't know if 200+ babies reflects two spawns of about 100 each, or one giant spawn of over 200 fry.

If there were two spawns with the same dad in the same bamboo last time, then it would mean the spawn from yesterday is spawn #4, not #3.

Does anyone know the max clutch size for this species? What's the biggest R. lanceolata spawn you've had or have heard about?

Cheers, Eric

Hey, Eric, I see you have some wall hangers, what is your survival rate?

Jeanne

Hi Jeanne, so far, I've pulled out only 3 or 4 dead from the first spawn. I imagine a few more have have died, but I haven't seen more dead bodies from that box and I still have at least 100 of the one-month old babies. So survival rate is over 90% at this time.

Cheers, Eric

Was that second spawn actually two spawns at once? The mystery may be solved! Dad's already on eggs for two days, and another female is back in his bamboo laying MORE eggs!
Cheers,
Eric

Rineloricaria lanceolata: One male. One bamboo pipe. Two spawns at once? TWICE?

About two weeks ago, I had to move the oldest baby out of the breeder box, because I needed the breeder box for the latest spawn which was going to hatch at any moment. I put the oldest babies, along with some baby , in the greenhouse, in a 60 gallon breeder. Today, the Rineloricaria fry are about 2 months old and the biggest one I saw today was 22mm SL.

The two younger batches of fry are still in breeder boxes in my room and doing well.

Cheers, Eric

Here's one of my largest (but not the largest) Rio Itaya fry.

They've been growing in a 60 gallon tank in a greenhouse since mid-April. This F1 specimen is just over 3 months old (three months and one week old), 53mm SL (nearly 70mm TL). It has a beige base color, blackish markings and some green iridescence. Lovely!

Remarking on their size, I gotta give a big shout out to growing babies in a big tank in a greenhouse, where (I think) the algae and microfilm growth from greenhouse natural light helped. These fry are more than twice as big as the largest fry of same age reported in the only other BLOG with size data, and they're much bigger (at least 1 cm longer) than the similar-age fry that I grow at home.

Twelve of these fish, along with twelve L052, six `big spot`, seven Ancistrus aff. bodenhameri (), and twelve , are going to auction at the FIN-DIG 2023 event this weekend in Sacramento, California.

Cheers, Eric

About 5 and a half months old, over 71 mm SL... and this may not be the largest fish (as you can see from the photo, the water in their tank is VERY green; this fish was just hanging on the glass so I took its photo). I have another group of over 80 fry, now a month old (they hatched in the last week of June), in a breeder box.

Cheers, Eric

Looking great!
-Shane

This group of fish keeps plugging along. I had a spawn at the end of June, which hatched in early July. They're about 3 weeks old now and doing pretty good. Also, three or four days ago I discovered another dad on eggs.

Cheers, Eric

Looks like your raising lots of fish successfully! Since you have so many babies, I suggest you grow algae on 200mm x 20mm x 20mm lengths of hardwood stakes instead of plates. (Most garden suppliers sell stakes). I drill a hole at one end and use coat hanger wire to hook onto tank sides and algae tank. Instead of a tank, I use clear 2L plastic coke bottles and can fit 6 or 8 stakes per bottle. Have around 30 bottles on ten day staggered rotation, rob and re-start 3 bottles each day. A small pinch of soluble fertiliser per bottle to encourage lush growth. The stakes grow biofilm as much as algae.

The very first few days of first feed, I drop water level in growout tanks to a few centimetres water and lay the stakes horizontal as they don't forage far. I used to use decapsulated artemia but prices sky-rocketed. Once a couple fish start eating, the rest copy.

These Rineloricaria are more carnivorous. I'm sure they eat some algae, but I'm growing them out on live microworms. When they're a little bigger, I'll move them to a greenhouse grow-out tank that looks green with algae, and then I'll supplement the algae with shrimp flakes and later shrimp pellets.

Cheers, Eric

bekateen wrote: ↑05 Aug 2023, 04:47 These Rineloricaria are more carnivorous. I'm sure they eat some algae, but I'm growing them out on live microworms. When they're a little bigger, I'll move them to a greenhouse grow-out tank that looks green with algae, and then I'll supplement the algae with shrimp flakes and later shrimp pellets.

Cheers, Eric

I came to a similar conclusions back when I was breeding my wild caught Sturisoma spp.
I think algae, diatoms and detritus are eaten incidentally in their search for higher protein foods. I consider these fish to be primarily predators of small aquatic invertebrate eggs and larvae.
I had very good fry survival once I relied on primarily earthworm sticks and chilled, live or freshly demised Artemia nauplii stored in clean brine in my refrigerator. These foods were my secret sauce.

I'm sure surprised at what seems to me, large sized spawns of such large eggs from a fairly small species. The really deserve to be a more popular species. Perfecting their culture would really help them to become more available and it looks like you're well along that way.

Took some of my Rineloricaria lanceolata fry to my club (Sacramento Aquarium Society) today when Andreas Tanke visited to speak. The largest fry I brought, now 6.5 months old, was 74mm SL. They are growing quit nicely.

Cheers, Eric