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After two years of keeping solely spinosus (L160/L96), my spinosus managed to spawn. I would say it was just by chance and it would be a wonderful gift I ever received.

It all happens when I send my fishes to Aquarama for a week, and the cave that was occupied by one of them became vacant. This gave a chance for my Alpha Male to grab his opportunity to trap one of the females inside. The trapping was not consistent as how hypancistrus trap their mate for a few days. At most they were both inside the cave for 1-2 days before the female would escape. This Alpha Male had been sexually active with his ex-girlfriend but no success. Possibly due to the large number of occupants in the same 5ft tank.

The DAD:


The Mum: Now


The Mum: Before with previous owner


His Ex-girlfriend: so called L375


Alpha previous adventure with his ex-girlfriend:

The cave that they managed to spawn:

* Note that the white stuffs are his sperm, they are not white shit.


31st May 2009:
Today is the day when I brought my 2 fishes back from Aquarama. Once I introduce them back to the tank, they seems so lost and others seems to have forgotten who they are.
The Alpha Dad who is trapping in the cave, came out to welcome them with a fight. They seems to be fighting for their territory again. It’s not just a one on one, but a gang fight of 4 adults males.
Fearing that my Alpha will get hurt and that might affect his trapping activities, I transferred him with his current mate and his ex-girlfriend into a 3ft IOS tank, using back the same cave that he occupies in my 5ft, making it a trio, 1M2F.
As I felt that the temperature is slightly higher in my 3ft tank, I placed a bag of ice cubes inside my tank to bring the temperature down.


1st June 2009:
In the morning, I have no time to check them out before I rushed for work. I assume that they will be fine and continue their daily activities. However at night, I received a call to rush home. I found a huge bunch of eggs in my tank, just right outside the cave.


Indeed, they have spawned. But why they are not in the cave??
Questions like:
Why didn’t the DAD take care of the eggs?
Why did the DAD suffered bite marks on its back?
Will the eggs get fertilized since they were not in the cave?
Such questions keep me scratching my head. I immediately transferred them into a floating hatchery, with just an air stone to keep them well-ventilated.





2nd June 2009: Day 01
Some casualties found in the hatchery. Bad ones are turning from clear-transparent to mustard-colour. I had to use a pipette to remove those bad ones.


*Note that the numbers of the eggs are getting lesser and lesser.

4th June 2009: Day 03
Due to some issues, the air stone fail to provide enough aeration to the hatchery. I estimated that more than half of eggs turn opaque. I decided to salvage the good ones into a small container instead of clearing away those bad ones. Those with their yolk burst, makes the hatchery so disgusting in sight.





This is what is left, after I transferred those possible healthy ones. 34 eggs left. They have had their veins or tails formed inside the egg shells.


5th June 2009: Day 04
More casualties, 28 were left in the morning at 0900hrs. Most of them have hatched from their shells. However, at 2300hrs, 7 left the group. Now, I left with 21 of them. Head and tails are formed.

Examples of the fries that turned bad.


* I had to use a pipette to remove them. This is how it looks like, with the yolk and the spine forming (in red).



6th June 2009: Day 05
More casualties again, left with 17 wrigglers now. However, 3 of them are developing slower than the rest. I’m hoping to have a balance of 14 left.



* Note that the mouth has formed and they attached themselves against strong current.

8th June 2009: Day 07
No casualty so far, still remains at 17 wrigglers. Not only their eyes and mouth are developed, I can notice their pectoral, dorsal and ventral fins are forming up.






Some of their head are turning grayish and they were sticking onto the walls furiously.
Will update accordingly as they grow. To be Continued.....

* A special thanks to my friends for their valuable advices to make this attempt possible.

Congratulations.

--
Mats

awesome keep us posted!

Congratulations and amazing!!

Hi

Congratulations.

Udo

Extremely well done - hats off to you

Cattleya wrote:Hi

Congratulations.
Udo

I hope one day we can exchange pointers and ideas about breeding them. You have a magnificent spawn on L97 too.
Cheers.

well done, looking good.

keep us updated

Very well done How large is the male and female?

Please keep us posted on further development of the youngsters.

9th June 2009: Day 08
17 wrigglers still remains so far, no casualties for the past few days. However, i noticed that there are 3 of them that looks abnormal. They are having a "space" wrapping round their yolk and their development are much slower than the rest of them whom have had their body turn slightly grayish.

I have invited a fellow hobbyist, SotongMan from Plecoclub Singapore, over for a detailed photography session. The results using a Macro lens were outstanding. I hope you guys enjoy as much as i do.




* 8days old fries




* This looks like a underdeveloped fry, it might have deformed at birth.


* This is the "space" i refering to. Anyone knows what causes this outcome??

Here comes the DAD:

He is 11inch TL, he is also the Alpha Male in my colony tank.


The Mum is at 8.5 inches TL. Her colour darken after she came into my tank. Suspected that the colour changed was due to the dark environment she is in, currently.


They spawned in a 30inch by 18inch by 18inch tank.

10th June 2009: Day 09
As expected, one of the deformed wrigglers with a "space" at the yolk,left the group.
In the morning, it was looking as per normal, but when i noticed it in the night, what was left was just the body, the yolk was no where to be found.


* A morning shot



* This was what it left.


The remaining two at the back, does not looks good. They are still wriggling and i just can't bear to pipette them out.

11th June 2009: Day 10
This evening, things went bad. 2 of my wrigglers turn bad. When i found it,they were already as white as a silverfish. Did a headcount and i have only left with 14 of them. I think that if it was not my duty, rather than the DAD's, the survival rate will be much higher compare to this balance 14 out of the 200++ eggs in Day 01.

I do hope that i would have at least 10 fries left for me for this spawn.




* That's how they look. I feel so sorry for not keeping them alive.

The balance 14 wrigglers left.



Will update soon......

Sad! But I expect that they couldn't be saved.

I sincerely hope that you'll manage to keep the rest of them alive.

BTW nice pics! Keep em coming!

01 July 2009: Day 30

Some updates after so long, unfortunately, i have left with a balance of 5 wrigglers, out of the 10 that i had at Day 20. It seems like a sudden death, where there are not much movement in the water parameter. Possibly that they are the weaker ones that did not managed to survive, given that my air pump stop functioning on Day 3 that causes 50% of the eggs to be wipe out.



They have start their solid food feeding in Day 24, feeding on Hikari micro wafer. So far, their response to the food is very good and they are not shy to come out in the open to eat, shown in the video below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mq8ztfKdB8

Moreover, i have added a small piece of dw and some moss for them to play around. Not only they get to hid under the DW, they get to eat on some of the micro-organism too. I am happy that i could see small strings of shits coming out from them. At least to show that they are healthy.





In the mean time, i'm preparing for Round 2, with only the parents inside the tank, with their kids on the floating hatchery. The female started to get rounder and rounder and the Dad started to get quite aggressive towards her.Trying his luck to force her into the 3.5 x 3.5 x 10inch cave, but it's always unsuccessful. She will tend to hid behind the cave.

During wc every 5days at about 20% or lesser, i will add a pack of ice cubes into the tank, to bring down the temperature. That was how they spawn 1 month ago and i am trying it regularly to trigger their instinct to spawn again. But as of now, the female is not quite ready yet. So may have to wait for another week or two.

Will update again every fortnight and thanks for reading.

excellent job!!

i would be so proud if i was to succesfully breed a beautiful species like this!

please keep us posted

Some updates again @ Day 45

I still have a balance of 5 babies since the last update. They should have grown slightly bigger than last time. Took them out for a photography session, and well, they are 2cm to be exact.






I do notice that their tail are not straight. All seems to have a slight bent. Is that normal for babies or they are all deformed??

It seems that they get easily stress, even i transferred them into another container for a photo shoot. Their colour changed from dark grey till yellow, some even shows a pale white colour. Some does not change much, still remains that their original greyish black.






I am wandering, given that the DAD is of yellow coloration, and the MUM is a blackie. Whats the % of these 5 babies does follows the DAD's genes.
Although it was stated as a spinosus spawn, I'm sure that DAD is not a normal spinosus (L160). The colour is too hard to believe. Neither can it be a L96, where there aren't any orange-traits on the tail. Could it be a L375???



I remembered when Ingo Seidel came visiting during the Aquarama, I spoke to him and share with him regarding my views on the spinosus that he wrote on inside his book. When i ask him about the difference between a spinosus and a L375, he mentioned that although they may looks the same, yet the spots markings are different.

Indeed, Spinosus have a regular round spots that covers the whole body, while a L375 have a irregular spottings where it can be round but also in a worm-line wriggly shape. Planetcatfish only have 1 pic of L375 and if i use it as a reference, Dad really don't looks like him either. Neither can it be a spinosus.

So guys, what's your views??
Is Dad a spinosus or is he a L375, although it came in as a L160.

Purely referring to what I know about genetics, as I know hardly anything about Loricaridae genetics, in most cases the yellowish variety (often referred to as a xantic mutation) is missing the black pigment. crossbreeding such an animal with a 'normal ' one (one without this defect) would repair the failure to make the black pigment, and thus resulting in 'normal' fry

However, offspring of these fry would - Mendelian genetics - result in 1/4, or 1/16, of the fry being yellow. absense of something is almost always submissive to the presence of the same.

Still, as I know next to nothing about Loricaridae, I can't answer your question relating to what L number dad would be. If it entered the shop as a small fish, it could even be natural selection did not have the opportunity do it's thing yet to him - so dad might just be xantistic himself.

On a side note an advantage of having only 5 is that you wil lbe able to keep them all. I know I would

Bas,

The genetics you describe does indeed match with my experience with bristlenose fry, and I have a hard time coming up with any reason why the same should not apply to other species of Loricariidae.

--
Mats

Some Updates @ Day 60:

No casualty so far. 5 still remains.
However, since the last post, their length still remains the same at 2cm. I was hoping for it to reach 2.5cm, 1 inch. Yet, so far not much progress.

On the other hand, the parents seems to have their factory stop working. Although now the mum seems ready with her round tummy, there are no actions from the both of them.

Dad seems to be contents with the environment that he seems can't be bothered caving. He is always spotted at the side of the cave and mum is always at the other side of the cave.
They seems to have "divorce" after their 1st spawn. I was told that an average waiting time for the next spawn, would be a month later. Now, it's already two..something seems not right. Mum seems reluctant to get close to the Dad and she seems avoiding him, from his line of sight.

Is she not ready or the problem lies with the Dad?

Last week, i introduce his ex-girlfriend into their life. Dad is very interested, so do the Mum. She kept picking on her and they have a serious catfight. She might be telling her that: Hey, get out of our life."
Dad seems too actively trying to trap her, but with his wife around, she does not seems interested to take any chance.

My intention was to trigger the Mum to be active again, after all they were there on the 1st night before the mum spawn. But it seems that, this don't work at all. Seeing the ex-girlfriend suffering from quite a fair bit of torns and scratch, I decided to move her out.

So now is the question: How can i get them sexually active again??

Should i put another smaller male inside to trigger Dad to cave or "another pair" to trigger the both of them??

Updates @ Day 75

Exactly a month ago, at Day 45, all were at 2cm TL when i took them for a photography session. Today, 3 of them reach 2.5cm TL (1inch) since birth. However, the remaining 2 seems to be stuck at 2 cm or 2.25cm. These growth rate are extremely slower than the trio.

Furthermore, at close range, i will noticed that their body markings have somehow developed and they are irregular with one another. None of the 5 pieces looks the same to one another.
Strange....

I'm hoping they remains different with one another as days comes. In the meanwhile,the parents does not have any action going on. The female has her stomach round again, however, the male does not seems ready to cave. He is always at the other side of the cave. Sometimes, it does occupy the cave for a few moments, but most of the time, he will be spotted apart from the female

Here are some pics of the 5 siblings, notice their different markings:






Continued.............

Continue.......

Last fries:



And lastly, some tank shots:






Will update again on 010909....

Anyone who have their fishes spawned before, have any experience in the different sizing within the same brood???
Since they eat the same food and stay in the same water parameter.

Other Loricariidae, some fish grow quicker than others - probably due to some fish being more agressive than others.

--
Mats