How to get Farlowellas in the mood ;)

[Mol_PMB]

The answer to the egg issue is two pairs of fine-pointed tweezers and two very steady hands! I managed to pull the eggs apart from either side and the fry swam free.
It was stressful for all of us, hopefully they will get over it. I saved at least 10, think I lost a couple. There's another 10 or so that hatched on their own, and about 10 more unhatched eggs.
Pics later
Paul

[Mol_PMB]

Here are some pics of the new arrivals. About 25 are out of the eggs now, there are about 10 more unhatched eggs but I don't know how many are still viable.

[Mol_PMB]

The remaining eggs have either hatched or are clearly unviable, so I've had a clean-up and count. I think there are 30 twiglets in total.
As usual, they seem to show no interest in doing anything other than sucking the glass. I have started offering powdered chlorella and spirulina in case the earlier developers are ready for it.

[Mol_PMB]

Yesterday I had an idea. The tiny twiglets like suckering to the things in areas of high water flow. So could I get them to eat by putting a spinach leaf under the place where the water enters the breeder box? I put one in last night, and they seemed uninterested. But this morning, there are at least 12 of them on it (some on each side of the leaf)

I've also put some twigs (the wooden sort) a couple of stones and a little snippet of plant in there to give them a variety of things to rest on. I'm feeding chlorella and spirulina powder too, and one of the twigs I've put in has been dipped in Repashy.

[Karsten S.]

Hi,

Another 10 have their tails free of the egg but seem to be having the same problems in getting out of their eggs. ...wearing the egg like a helmet, but they can't get it off. I'm not sure what to do - I suspect they're too small and delicate for my ham-fisted fingers to help. Any ideas?

quite often I have the same problem with cory fry and I use a air tube to suck them in and to release them again by blowing into the tube with (high) pressure. With Farlowella fry I have never tested, up to now I always let the dads do their job...
The eggs might be too big for a standard air tube ?!

Cheers,

[Mol_PMB]

Thanks Karsten, that's a good tip and I'll try it if I have the same problem in future. The Farlowella eggs do fit in an airline tube; I used one to siphon out a couple of fungussed ones.

I've previously always let Dad do the job, but the pair of them made such a mess of it this time that I had to intervene.

I've attached a couple more pics of the fry from today (2 days old)

[Mol_PMB]

Today I sold my juvenile

Dicrossus filamentosus

, which were in the same tank as my

Farlowella vittata

. This entailed taking out all the decor and lots of swearing with two nets. At the same time, I took out the cichlid parents and transferred them to a separate tank, leaving just the 3 adult and 2 juvenile Farlowellas in the tank, and the two-week old twiglets in their nursery box.

I went out for a few hours to deliver the cichlids and trade them for something else. When I got back, both species were spawning! (now in separate tanks). After last time's threesome and fight, the twig cats have happily reverted to their previous habit of just a M/F pair doing the spawning, though the other male is watching closely.

[bekateen]

... This entailed taking out all the decor and lots of swearing with two nets.

Interesting technique. How do you use the swearing? And do you swear better with two nets than one?

Cheers

P.S., on a more sincere note, congrats, and you have some cute little eggs on that leaf.

[Mol_PMB]

I've just had a quick measure up:
Adult male - 170mm TL, 145mm SL (I've had the adults for 15 months now, they were about 100mm SL when I got them)
Juvenile - 100mm TL, 80mm SL (7 months old)
Fry - 22mm TL, 19mm SL (23 days old)

And the ones still in their eggs (laid 4 days ago) are probably about 5mm by now, they usually hatch at 9-10mm.

[Mol_PMB]

Here are my two juvenile twiglets on the glass together this evening, posing nicely. I've taken this photo to emphasise their noses.
The one on the left has a slim, smooth nose, which means she's a female. The male on the right has a slightly broader nose, and you can just make out the start of some odontodes (hairs) on the sides of the nose.

The female is about 95mm TL and the male 105mm TL. Both seem to be eating well and growing measurably week by week.

I've still got another 11 from the more recent brood, about 25mm long. Of the most recent batch of 51 eggs, sadly none lasted long enough to hatch.

[bekateen]

Nice. Early signs of gender are very useful. Do these develop any genital differences? If so, are they apparent yet?

[Mol_PMB]

Good point - I'll have a closer look at that. Here's a recent photo of the parents, with a very gravid female between two males. There seems to be quite a difference in that region.

[Mol_PMB]

OMG - My babies have bred!

I haven't put much on this thread recently because there was sad news - after I moved and separated my

farlowella vittata

family to various tanks, 'Dad' jumped (I later found his dessicated body) and 'Mum' is looking poorly and hiding at the back (I wondered if she might have been a goner too, but she's still alive).

There are three juveniles still alive - a male and a female from one litter that are now 100mm SL and 9 months old (born Feb 2015). The third is from a more recent litter and only 50mm SL, not yet sexable. They're in a tank with their poorly mother. I must confess it's a pretty poor survival rate from about 10 spawns and about 100 fry hatched.

Yesterday I saw the two larger juveniles snuggling up together in a corner of the tank, just like their parents did in preparation for mating. But surely a 100mm, 9-month old fish is too young? Just the equivalent of a snog behind the bike sheds? The juvenile female had been looking very tubby recently though.

Today the young male is guarding a small clutch of eggs, which look viable, and the young female is less tubby.
Now, I didn't actually see the spawn, so it's just possible that their poorly Mum was the female, but it was certainly the two juveniles cosying up together in that location immediately beforehand, with Mum hiding in the opposite corner of the tank.

Farlowella vittata, 9 months old and 100mm SL, looking after his first spawn,

So, I think my two little twiglets have bred

[pleconut]

Re the fry survival rates i read on a l397 breeding log leaving some slightly older fry with the new as the older fry teach the younger to eat it may help. If not for the twiglet's then maybe when the L397s start.

[bekateen]

Re the fry survival rates i read on a l397 breeding log leaving some slightly older fry with the new as the older fry teach the younger to eat it may help.

Can you provide a link to this source?

Thanks,
Eric

[pleconut]

Hi the link to it is
http://www.plecoplanet.com./forum/showthread.php?t=6351 lady had to reduce her batch - too may babies. We might both be very busy paul and myself looking after the fry and his lucky male L397 looking after the eggs. But Paul has it spot on with his breeding quadrant in light of the link obviously in my research i often find helpful links ect and other info for the L397s i will keep you posted as you're planning on getting some as well.

[bekateen]

Hi Teresa,

I tried the link but it didn't work; apparently it had a small typographical error in it. So I fixed it and here it is:
http://www.plecoplanet.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6351.

Thanks for the link. It's a nice read. And did you notice that about half-way down the page are photos of a couple of the fry (all grown up) from those spawns, and one of these is the feature photo on the L397 CLOG page? Nice!

Cheers,
Eric

P.S., apologies to the OP, as we're getting off the subject here.

[Mol_PMB]

Thanks and no worries
Another thing I recall reading (but can't remember where) is that fish which eat predominantly vegetable matter need to build up a population of certain bacteria in their gut. They can seed the bacterial population by eating poo from an older fish.
So it might be that they're not just being shown how to eat by the older fish, but also being given the bacteria needed to digest the food.
Sorry I can't find the reference for this.

[bekateen]

Another thing I recall reading (but can't remember where) is that fish which eat predominantly vegetable matter need to build up a population of certain bacteria in their gut. They can seed the bacterial population by eating poo from an older fish.
So it might be that they're not just being shown how to eat by the older fish, but also being given the bacteria needed to digest the food.
Sorry I can't find the reference for this.

Is this what you read? Nitrogen fixing bacteria in the gut of Panaque nigrolineatus

Cheers, Eric

[Mol_PMB]

Thanks Eric

[pleconut]

The lady the done the breeding log i think she may have been on the forum here so you might get info from past threads. There is a lot of info on forums particularly in Australia as the L397s really took off thêre. In terms of finding info via google on them there's not much out there yet.

[Mol_PMB]

Cheers Teresa I'll have a look at those links.

[Mol_PMB]

So, on close inspection my juvenile male is guarding a small brood of 15 eggs, all appear viable at the moment and I can see movement in some of them. Here he is:

Juvenile Farlowella vittata M with first brood

Meanwhile, his mother and sister snuggle up together, while a younger sibling is nearby:

Adult F, juvenile F and young Farlowella vittata

And here's another photo of the little one, who hasn't learnt to hold his tail still while I take the picture ;)

Young Farlowella vittata

[pleconut]

The youngest one there in the second picture i assume is eating well how big is it as thinking along the lines of you putting it with the newly hatched ones if there's not a huge size difference to see if the theory of the older showing the younger how to eat will work and increase the fry survival rates.

[Mol_PMB]

The little one is about 30mm SL, closer to 40mm TL.
It is eating well, sometimes looks quite tubby and is often first on the Repashy-dipped twigs that I put in for the smaller ones.

Newly-hatched fry are about 8mm TL.

I have tried to raise several broods of these, I normally get the majority eating OK and then lose them when I go away for a few days (which happens often) possibly through starvation or deteriorating water quality. The three survivors you see in these pics are my only successes in getting them to a size where they are independent and self-supporting.

On my jobs list is setting up the breeder box on the new twig tank so I have somewhere to put the new babies

[pleconut]

If you are going to be around you could try with the older one in the breeder box and see how it goes because of the significant size difference if seems if it's not working in his or in the younger ones favour then put him back in main tank but if this theory does work i'd say it is more likely to work better if they are from batches close together say of a couple that are eating well from the previous and the latest newly hatched from next so there's not much of a size difference it might be still a chance you want to take in order to increase survival rates.

[Mol_PMB]

Eggs look nearly ready to hatch, in the next couple of days I guess. The lad's still guarding them

[Mol_PMB]

I have the first two hatchings from generation II on the glass - the rest look ready to hatch.
Their young Dad has done a great job of guarding the eggs; he's been on there almost constantly and I saw him flick away a marauding snail yesterday. And their young Mum is looking tubby again already.

[Mol_PMB]

Here are pictures of the two new twiglet hatchlings that I have seen so far.

I've got a new lens, quite pleased with the detail on these

Just had a measure up. Dad is 98mm SL, Mum is 95mm SL, babies are 10mm SL.
Mum and dad were born in February this year.

[pleconut]

Congratulations are in order -Maybe for me too there's some fanning activity in one of the caves of my L397s.