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Good news: 25 eggs were rolling in my zebra-tank
Bad news: I separated them, and all fungused, can anybody see if the eggs are sterile or do I just have to be more careful with the waterparameters next time.
I guess that I have more than one female and that they have been in one male's cave.



well the url fore the pic is
http://eheim-uk.com/planetcatfish/galle ... zebra_egg1

Wow!......25 eggs that's a lot for a Zebra spawning.

If the eggs were rolling about in the tank then the male has kicked them out his cave. This generally means that the eggs were not fertile or that your water parameters were not too good. I'm not sure if you are able to tell which one though.

As zebra eggs are quite big you can sometimes see the fry starting to form. This would mean that the eggs were fertilised. (Sorry if this is stating the obvious)

hi wat a waist 25 eggs.. thats quite alot for a very small plec

Did u remove them too soon? thats why the eggs wheren't fertilized?

I've read that often, the first spawning is just a "test"-run, have they spawned before? If they spawn again, I'd love to buy some of the offspring in the summer, when I'm going to Copenhagen

Good luck!

Any chance you could take some additional pics of your setup. I'd like to get an idea of what it looks like

Yup I have never heard that one female would go for such a number, so 2 must be involved. Unfortunately it's not the first time it has happened, guess Ihave found egg 4 times now with the same result , we have very hard water where I live (around 20 dGh) could that be a reason ?? have heard that they have been bred in hard water before, but any hardwaterbreeders out there to confirm?
I wish I have some to sell to you König when you visit Copenhagen
..and Clay I will try to take some pic's

Well!

On the picture it seems that about 5-6 of them are infertile, the other one are hard to tell as it will mainly depend of the time the picture was taken after the egg laying but they seem to be rather young.
Try to take the egg in a floatting box and add an airstone to see how the eggs are doing...
25 eggs seems to be a lot for H. zebra, what are their size and how many males and females, what are the other habitants of the tank...
Cheers
Yann

4 of them are around 5 years and are 2 males, 1 female and one unsexed. Recently, ½ a year ago, I bought 2 more (unsexed, they were skinny due to competition in a community aquarium) but have done very well and I suppose that there are at least one female (due to the high number of egg).
The old ones are 6-7 cm and wellfed (fat i guess) and the 2 newcommers are 5-6 cm and also in good shape. I haven't seen/followed the female/s after the egglaying 'cause I don't want to disturb them moving their stones/caves all the times.
Other creatures in the aquarium is 3 Parotocinclus, 4 Sturisomatichthys, 2 Atyopsis shrimps and a few wild-guppy's, no-one are competing for caves with the zebra's, but might of course disturb a little
Do you, Yann, have any comment on the hardness of my water?
Greetings

Hi Steen,
I agree with Yann, four of the eggs are definitely fungusised, and all the rest look fine ,however they are only a day old by the looks of thins as there is very little development of the fry, usually after only a couple of days you can destinguish the young fish very clearly, If this happens again do what Yann suggests and seperate them into a small floating tank with an airstone and try to let as little light as possible get to them. Have you seen the male with the two seperate females? It seems odd that the two egg laying were so close together as all the eggs look as if they are the same age. But the maximum ihave ever had is 10 eggs from one batch, with an average of 8-9.

Better luck next time, but if you see the eggs floating around and they are still the same colour as the ones in the photo (except for the four bad ones) take them into the floating tank, and I wouldn't botherto seperate them, as they are so delicate you might do more harm than good.
Cheers Marc

No I haven't seen the action, just never heard about that many eggs for a single female. I guess it's our wonderfull weather in denmark right now who have trigged then to spawn, normal temperature in aqua is 27-28, but it have raised to 30 in the last week.
Thanks for the answers.

Hi!
Well the most I have ever heard for H. zebra is 14 eggs

The water hardness is a bit high for sure but it should not bother the fish at this stage of the spawning, it can cause problem usually when the young hatch as it can cause problem for the them to exit the shell
Cheers
Yann

its possible two females spwning.. as the same with my sturisoma aureum, 3females laying eggs, at the same site and the a single male fertilizing them ;) gudluck..

Hi!

females laying eggs is a possibility, but so far the only species I have witness such behavior in the Ancistrini tribe is the species of the genus Ancistrus
I have yet to witness that behavior with other genus...
I am also not aware of any report stating that 2 females ( or more) were involved in the spawn...
Cheers
Yann

although I have not witnissed it in my tank, but two females may have spawned in your tank from the looks of the eggs that are not in a single ball, all the spawnings in my tank has always been in a single ball of eggs, unless your breeding cave is very tight that the only way for the single female to lay them is in successions. If your female is 5 years old already it is capable of producing 25 eggs according to
Larry Vires,

Females will lay anywhere from 5-34 eggs, but it is uncommon that they lay above 20.

although the max. fry I have collected is 17, but the ave. is only 11 and out of this, only 6.8% of the fry would survive the larval stage and would die after hatching, majority of your zebra eggs looks like they are fertile, but I have zero success hatching eggs artificially.

this fungused ball of eggs was collected 6 days after being layed, w/in an hour or so they started to disintigrate and if you count it carefully there are aprox. 19 eggs I think there where more but could not remember the exact #


there is a possibility that more eggs are laid just not accounted for coz only the fertilized and hatched eggs emerges from the cave. dead zebra fry less than 24 hrs old after hatching



http://eheim-uk.com/planetcatfish/galle ... ry/albun21

Hi!

More than the age of the female, it is the size that will mostly dictate how many eggs shewill be able to lay...and of course how well condionned she was...

Zebra046: your survival rate seems to be very low, I have close too 100% with natural way, when making the artificial way , my rate was also very low but all the fry would survive after hatching...I attribute the lack of success in artificial hatching to a poor oxygenation of the water...
Your growing rate are good, you probably should make a lot of waterchange to keep the proper growth...

Regarding rearing the young in a small nursery, this is a good idea as it concentrate the food but after a certain stage and despite waterchange it will empeach them to grow properly and they should be released in the main tank! THis is probably due to too much young in a too restricted surface...

Cheers
Yann

25 eggs ! man !, mine only laid about 5 to 6 eggs !.
Last year was quite a productive year for my L046 coz' they spawn about 4 times unfortuantely only 4 made it ! they're about an inch now. Since the last spawn in last Oct, " they " have entirely stop " production " ! !.
I house all my L046 ( 11 adults and 4 Juveniles ) in a 4"x2.5'x2' tank , water parameter which I have checked was fine ! eg temp. is 29 degree C and Ph is 6.8 to 7, what seems to be the cause for them to stop " production " !

Hi!

H. zebra are believe to be seasoning fish, meaning they will spawn only during the rainy season...this could be a reason to their stopping...
The other could be the number of H. zebra you have in your tank, try to reduce a bit the population, it might work...
Cheers
Yann

yanns right! zebras are seasonal..

I have a question what if u try to create rainy season in ur tank??? just like trying to mate a panaque..

Hi!

Well I can speak for L4 as these will spawn all year if you trigger them with a simulation of the rainy season, otherwise they will not! H. zebra will probably behave the same way!
Cheers
Yann

thnks yann.. I also thought of that, fishes in captivity can be spawned all year long as long as they have proper condition and water parameters

A bit off-topic, but how is that hybrid loricariid of yours doing, Yann?