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Is anyhone else on this forum breeding S. multipunctatus? I have been breeding mine for a yeasr now and have gone througha few different hosts? what do you use as hosts and how many adults do you have in your breeding setup?

here is a pic of 2 of my adults.

Yes, Rusty and I have bred S. multipunctatus with no cichlid host. See the July 2002 Catfish of the Month at http://www.planetcatfish.com/cotm/2002-07.htm.

We have 6 S. multipunctatus.

What do you use as a host, how large a tank are they in and what other fish are they in with besides the hosts?

Dinyar

BTW, if I may put my moderator hat on for a moment, we'd be much obliged if you included your location in your profile.

I currently have them in a 180gal. I am currently using 2 hosts at the moment, red empress and Pseudotropheus saulosi, i also have 4 young dovii growing up in that tank beleive it or not their is also 2 Synodontis nigromaculatus in there also, so it's a bit of a mixed bag. I am selling the empress due to them "wisening up" to the multipunctatus.

I will add my location in when i add my avatar. ;) .

Some pics of a batch of fry.



they are only in this 'bucket' to make it easier to take pics.

A couple of bits of advice.

One, you are waiting too long to pull the fry. S. multipuntatus are incredibly fecund. I have a videotape of mine spawning in 1997(still have the same group!). Each pass the female will drop up to fifty eggs. A guilable female cichlid will pick every one! Strip at three days (the catfish eggs hatch in two or less) and the little buggers won't be eating each other YET. Tumble in typical c#$@*#d fashion. (BTW: Did you all start another Pl*co rumor or something?)

And two, my definitiion of a guilable female cichlid... Victorians. I have used "fire haps" with the best luck. They spawn on top of a rocky shelf (read inverted flower pot saucer!) in the open. Many other species of Haplochromines spawn under some sort of overhang or cover which makes the spawning sites easier to defend IE: H. nyreirei (sp?), H sp. "Rock Kribensis". Get the Haps spawning on a consistent weekly basis, then add the catfish.
BTW: I paid for a year of college with this fish! Literally! 697 fry sold in one year, average price $8.24 each!

Sincerely,
Paul E. Turley

I've got 2 females and 3 males, all of them are in the 5-6 inch range. I was spawning them in a 150 gallon tank using Hap. obliquedens as a host. There are about 50 obliq's in the tank also. I currently have my female S. multis in a 55 fattening them up and will add the males and a trio of the obliqs to see if I can trigger egg scattering from the multis. I have caught the largest pair of multis scattering eggs twice, early in the morning and both times after a 50% water change and both times the eggs were eaten by the Haps before I could find a net and get any out. I'm now up to 14 fry out of 4 spawnings. I have been stripping too late also, end up with a few big fry. I had one female Hap that had eluded capture in my stripping ventures and when I finally was able to catch her, half starved, she had one huge multi fry stuck in her mouth, almost killed them both trying to get him out but they are both fine now.

If I can ask a question, how long do you tumble the multi fry? 2-3 days? Until free swimming?
Thanks, Ted

Tumble them until they are actively swimming, then move them to a plastic breeder trap.
The goal here is to keep them close enought together to allow for POWER feeding on brine shrimp nauplii, but not so close that they will eat each other (lots of feedings help). Feed them enought two to three times a day so that every one looks like a orange golf ball with fins and a tail! They are little pigs, treat them accordingly.

Once they show adult coloration (3/4"), they can be moved to larger quarters.

Too many of the tank raised multis I have seen appear poorly grown (skinny with BIG eyes-I'll scan a photo of what I mean). These fish grow slowly and fare poorly overall. I once traded a guy 10 for 10, I ended up culling the entire lot of fish.

Growth rates on multi fry can/should be up to 1.25" long in 6 weeks!

Sincerely,
Paul E. Turley

BTW: There was an error in my previous post on this topic. The average price was actually $12.24 each!