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I am planning on putting a group of wild caught Synodontis multipunctatus in my 55g with some Ps. saulosi. Does anyone have any experience setting up a tank for them that will encourage breeding and general comfortability in their new environment?

Is sex ratio important? Because I don't think I would be able to sex them before buying.

I would appreciate any advice and/or experience. Pictures would be great too if you don't mind sharing!

Thanks

I'm new to syno multies also. I've been trying for a little over a year. My tank, I have plenty of pvc caves for the cats to hide in. They feel at home all over the tank. When the host male gets mad, the cats can dart into a cave and hide in a fraction of a second. I have my "spawning rock" right in front of the cat's cave. I try to give them a good quality food. If your host fish are pigs, feed the cats after you shut the lights off at night. I've read to many cats can be a problem. To many in a tank can scare the host fish from spawning. I'm thinking 4-6 cats in your setup. There is a lot of trial and error in these cats. Mbuma are a little tougher to get to spawn with cats. I've been working with Haps and Peacocks. I'm growing out some Victorian haps now to try.

Clean water is important. I do weekly water changes of 40-50%. One trick is to do a good 50% water change right before a weather front moves thru. Helps to get the host fish in the mood. I have two pair in my tank. When the females(syno multies) start to fight, you know the host fish are getting ready to spawn. I've read it's a hormone thing or something in the water that triggers them.

There are a lot of excellent fish keepers on this sight. They will give you the best advise that can be found. I learn something new each time I get a spawn.


Good luck,
Steve

Thanks for the info.

I'm planning on 5 for my tank. I'm going to add a breeding group of Aul. jacobfreibergi to the tank as well, but not until my saulosi get a little bit bigger and I can get their ratio to 2m:8f. I figure the peacocks will be more likely to hold multi broods successfully.

Clean water isn't a problem. I do at least 50% weekly. Plus I am going to be adding some fast growing plants to my sump/refugium, as soon as my bio-load is a little bigger, to help with nitrates.

I hadn't heard that trick before, about the weather front. I'll have to try that.

Is there a certain age when multis start to breed? I heard it takes longer with them.

I've also heard people talk about using terracotta saucers to make the type of shallow cave that multis love. Does anyone know how you would do this?

thanks

I've heard 3-5 years before they breed. The idea of terracotta pots and saucers, I believe, is just more dark cover for the cats. They feel safe when they have plenty of cover. Some mbuna, and most peacocks and haps won't go in dark blind caves, in my experience. They prefer something to swim thru or just structure to sit by. The cats like dark blind caves to hide in and feel cozy.

I used to keep and breed multis a while back. I started off with a reverse trio, not because this was an ideal ratio, but because that was all that was available to me. the fish were small, about 2 inches and I kept them in a 55 gallon with a breeding group of albino Aulonocara. the tank had a decent amount of rockwork and caves, but for the most part the multis stayed out and were very active. They did not start breeding until they grew a bit, which took 3 years. I kept a group of the for about 10 years before I gave them up to pursue other aspects of the hobby. Actually looking to keep a group again...

The flowerpots with saucers is primarily used when spawning lucipinnis which is a cave spawner. Multipunctata is a scatterer which has adopted the cuckoo method with mouthbrooding cichlids

Thanks for all the info.

How exactly do you use a saucer to make a cave? do you just lean it agains a rock or what?

I don't want anything unatural visible in my tank, so I'm trying to figure out how I could do this without it being noticeable.

You can also cut a notch out of the rim of the saucer, to make an opening - obviously depends on the shape of the saucer - for that to work, it needs to be "deep" enough.

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Mats

...or do that to two saucers then place them together (open areas together) which doubles the volume of the cave

Isn't terracotta difficult to cut?

fine tune it with a hammer.

tokyo wrote:Isn't terracotta difficult to cut?

Not really. If you leave it in a bucket of water, you can cut it with a regular hack-saw. Or a small angle-grinder, tile cutter, diamond holesaw in a power drill. Or as suggested, hammer will also work, but can cause breaks in other places than you actually intended.

All the tools mentioned are useful to have at home anyways, and certainly a small angle grinder isn't very expensive (less than $30 at Harbor Freight tools for a 4 or 4.5" one, which is what you want, and some masonry cutting disks for less than $10 on top of that - don't need any fancy diamond wheels for this work) - just make sure you get some safety goggles and don't sue me if you hurt yourself - these are not play-things, but powertools that cut almost anything - human body parts are not excluded from that list.

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Mats