I have not personally bred S. njassae and don't know anyone who has, but I have bred S. multipunctatus and have some experience with keeping Synodontis, and will try to answer your questions on that basis.
First, you may want to post pics of your fish on this forum to confirm that they are indeed S. njassae.
> 1. Sexing.
> The females are more plump than the male.
> Venting is possible like with Malawi C*****ds?
Yes, see the July 2002 Catfish of the Month on S. multipunctatus. Should work in a similar way for S. njassae.
> 2. Maturity.
> At which point are these mature?
> I have read 5-6 years old, but it's kinda hard to belive.
3-4 years at minimum, longer if nutrition, etc. is not optimal. In this respect, catfish are different from cichlids, which have babies while they're still babies.
> 3. Tank size.
> Which size would be appropriate to breed these in?
150 liters at a minimum
> 4. Cuckoo's or not.
> Do I need a spawning pair of Malawi's in the Syno breeding tank?
> Or are they scatterers?
Not cuckoos, scatterers.
>5. Water quality during spawning.
> Lower/higher temp.?
> Height from bottom of tank to top of water?
> Watercurrent slow/strong.
You want to keep the water as clean as possible.
> 6. Food.
> Any good foods?
> I feed with red bloodworms, shrimpmix, vegemix, live daphnia, frosen daphnia,
> cyclops and flakes. They love it all.
Pic's are on it's way. Taken lots 'n lots this weekend. (Hope some are good, darn fish won't stay still )
Any progress will be posted, but as my group of five only is about a year old it will take time. The last one i would guess (by the growth rate of the others) to be around 2yrs.
Thanks again...
I have read in a magazine (Aquaristik aktuell 5-6/2001) that S. njassae about 1000 - 3000 eggs lays. The eggs have a size about 2,5mm and they hatch out after 32-34 hours(temp. 27°C). Those informations are from the WCTAB (Wildlife conservation through aquarium breeding), Moskau.
Unfortunately stand there not how they breed S. njassae.
I think with hormon injections.
Friend of mine -Rene Kruter-who is as catfishbreeders go very good at it; has bred njassee with NO needles or hormones involved. Only mind this; he moved house and the new njasee tank is only one meter, due to size restrictions and many tanks with other Syno's.
Since moving in that tank from a 5 footer, they have refused to spawn again, so you've been warned: get a BIG tank. a 150 liter won't do, better get a 250-300 liter tank, and 5-7 njassee's......
He has bred quite some species, so he's very good at it, and tought me a truckload as well , although my S polli (not the Zambians but the true stuff) so far have spawned just once, and unfortunately I lost the eggs to fungus.
He has bred multipunctatus, sp aff multipunctatus ("Goldeneye), petricola Burundi, p "dwarf", nigriventris, polli, "polli Zambia" and njassee!
First off, sexing is easy, although not as easy as with multipuncs or petricola's; males have a weener (this is opposite to cichlids, where it's the FEmale with the papil!). Females are rounder, but this is still a very stretched fish!
Second, like Dinyar already said; no chuckoo, but scatterer, like most syno's, and you'd better believe the 6 year bit.....His (Rene's) Syno's started spawning when they were already many years in his care, and those were adult imported wildcaughts....
A mediumsized Syno like njassee can easily reach 15-20 year of age (probably small ones can too, my Mochokiella's and Pectorale's nigriventris were already up and running in 1985...)
Somethings new:
-Black mosquitolarvae and Mysis are especially good for getting syno's in the spawning mode.
-You need 2 males for 1 female, or even try group spawning. A single male can get lazy or distracted; by all accounts, it seems Syno males need a bit of rivalry to get things started. (like the well known Corydoras cats, more males is a pre)
-sudden waterchanges really help; unlike the Tanganyika Syno's that are quite old, species with a well specialized spawning behaviour (in some!), S njassee is -like the rest of Lake Malawi- not as old as the Tanganyikans.
Unlike the Tangs that can be bred year-round (that Lake is also allmost smack on the equator! maybe less seasonal changes?); it's close relationship to it's riverine ancestors bears out in their spawning; they're once a year spawners!
And they do so at the start of the rainseason. For Malawi, that would mean our winter or early spring is THE time of the year to attempt spawnings.Unlike South American cats (cory's and pleco's) who breed best in fall/autumn!
-IF you succeed in spawning, treat the eggs WITHIN 24 HOURS- with a fungicide, or you loose the whole batch!
-start feeding the young only after two days or so; the first days after hatching they lie still on the floor, using up yolk. If the waterquality goes down in this time, due to dead artemia's or microworms, you WILL loose all the fry! Once they're feeding don't overfeed; better give 2-3 times a day a bit, than the whole portion at once. The best time to feed baby syno's is when they're visibly searching for food. Both artemia and microworms are excellent startfood, but prime quality spirulina tabs are also very good, although njassee seems to like them a bit less than baby petricola, polli or multipunctatus.
Plan B should not automatically be twice as much explosives as Plan A
a friend of mine bred the species you showed in the other thread. Or at least i think its the same species. Though we are not sure if its S. nigrita we called it S. cf. nigrita.
Oliver did a breeding article, till now its only available in german. I'll translate it as fast as possible.
There is also a breeding article by Winkelmann in DATZ:
Winkelmann, H. 2002
Ein Zwerg unter den Fiederbartwelsen
DATZ 55(6): 8-11
) is to breed these.
)
