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Hi guys

My Dianema urostriatums have started showing signs of spawning.

They were sharing a tank with a breeding group of Callichthys and to my amazement i saw a male flagtail go upside down and start bubble under the lid.

Andy has now removed the Callichthys but i think hes upset the flagtails cause i have not seen the do it again.

It could be that there's too much Indian Fern floating around.

What do you guys think?

From what I read (or someone told me), they are more like Corys in breeding. But I could either have misunderstood, or the information was wrong...

Good luck with breeding them, whatever way the eventually lay their eggs...

--
Mats

Witnessing signs of prespawning activity is obviously the first step, and a temporary upset shouldn't last too long, as they are only doing what comes naturally , according to strong insticts - ie continuation of the species.

Too much indian fern? - well if the male is attempting something it cant be too much of a problem i'd have thought..

Extremely well done and keep us all posted on developments

I spawned the Dianema urostriatum in 1987. Here is a copy of my original article.


Dianema urostriata

This striped-tailed cousin of the common Porthole Catfish is a little shy, especially when it comes to spawning. I have only heard of one American hobbyist who has had them spawn. I bought three of these fish two or three years ago from a dealer who had put them at a super low bargain price because they had been in his shop too long. I brought them home and placed them in a ten gallon quarantine tank. A few times I saw some suspicious bubbles under a few floating plant leaves, but nothing to get excited about. After a couple of months I moved my three fish to a one hundred gallon community tank. Here they swam happily for two years.

Then one day I noticed the male dancing around the female and giving her a little tickle with his whicskers now and again. Up until then I wasn't sure of the sexes. It turned out the male was four inches long and the front edge of the pectoral fins had a slightly heavier ray. The females are six inches long and slightly more rounded in the belly. I caught the male and one of the females and placed them in a fifteen gallon tank with a six inch yellow plastic jar lid floating on the surface. A bubblenest was soon built and the male courted the female but nothing else happened. After two weeks he lost interest and so did I. Back into the hundred they went, but not for long. Two weeks later, a female had gotten rather plump and he was chasing her.

This time the pair went into a flat thirty gallon tank of slightly aged tap water. By the next day they had a nest under the jar lid. Nothing happened until I went away that weekend. When I came back I found that they had spawned and eaten all but two eggs. They were taken out but did not hatch.

Two more weeks passed. The male maintained his bubblenest but there was no more spawning until I went away for the weekend. When I returned I could see eggs in the nest. A close look revealed about 75 eggs stuck to the jar lid under the bubbles. The lid was placed in a small pail with an air stone and a few drops of acriflavine. Four days later, fifty fry hatched. I moved them to a fifteen gallon tank where they thrived on baby brine shrimp and powdered flake food. The fry vary in their growth rate but average about an inch a month. So far, the adults have refused to spawn again but I am still trying. If they were too easy, everybody would be spawning them. This is truly a challenging but rewarding fish. Don't let the fact that you haven't heard of anyone spawning a particular fish before stop you from trying. Let it be a challenge. Good Luck.

Hi Bwhiskered,

Thank you for your post and the info.

We have had nearly all to the hoplo types cats and spawned them all and these are my next challenge.

Ive had them about 4 years now, my hubby nearly sold them 3 times but they are mine and its my dream to breed them.

I notice about 2 years ago how to sex them the male pectoral fins are just like the Pectorales and yes the males are smaller too.

They have settled down and coming out more, im feeding them frozen blood worm and high protein granules.

They get a 12 minute auto water change twice a day.

Ill keep you posted.

I just happened to be walking past the tank and glanced in... oh there's one of the flagtails up the top under a floating leaf... ooh there's another one under there - hey, are they bubbles? runs to grab camera...
Later, if I'm feeling brave, I might try to gently nudge the leaf closer to the front so I can have a good look at it and see if there are any eggs.

Video of apparent spawning.



Hard to see from under as they've knocked some plants in the way but it looks like there is a collection of dark dots under the leaf. I don't want to bother them so I'll have a closer look later when they've finished.

I wish you the best of luck and hope you raise fry. I had a successful spawning back in the 80's.

One of the adults (the male?) is still hanging around the leaf, when I poke my finger in the water near there's a bit of thrashing that seems to suggest 'keep away'.

Not sure what I'm going to do, I don't have any other tanks I can put them in so I was going to float the leaf in plastic tub floating in the tank, but not too keen to do that while the parent is hanging around. And the floating leaf is slowing decaying and I don't think it will float for too many days.

I would move the eggs to the plastic tub so they won't get eaten. They should hatch in about 4 days even if they fall of the leaf.

Yeah I think I might have to do that. The male is definitely guarding the egg raft, he's never far from it and often sits underneath upside-down and shunts the leaf about like a boat whenever it drifts out of the corner.

I finally got a look at the underside of the leaf, there seems to be quite a few eggs under there ready to hatch. I put the raft in a tub, along with the male as he refused to be separated from it, I'll try to tease him out later.

A couple of pics and another video of him putting around!

This is really great. I have been trying to spawn these for years. This has motivated me to keep trying!

Really superb images and info, can we have some more info on water parameters, husbandry regime, feeding etc. please?

This time the pair went into a flat thirty gallon tank of slightly aged tap water. By the next day they had a nest under the jar lid. Nothing happened until I went away that weekend. When I came back I found that they had spawned and eaten all but two eggs. They were taken out but did not hatch.

Hey Burlington boy! Can you remember how deep the water was when you placed the pair into the flat 30? I had a pair years ago that spawned and I got maybe 30-40 eggs to hatch but the fry perished before they became free-swimming. They spawned in a 20 tall (16")right around this time of year. At this time there is another male attempting to blow a bubblenest in the exact same tank, but his only result so far is 2 large bubbles on the underside of the plastic yellow lid with a few tiny bubbles (a la Don Ho)right beside them. There's a large full female in the tank with him and I'm thinking of transferring the both of them to a shallow (7") to try something different.

Edmonton kid newly retired!

The tank was a flat 30 gallon and the water was only 10 inches deep.

coelacanth wrote:Really superb images and info, can we have some more info on water parameters, husbandry regime, feeding etc. please?

Essentially they have been left alone in a quiet, somewhat neglected tank for some time. Water parameters I will have to test but it would be quite soft and on the cool side around 22 - 23, regular light feeding with dry food with sporadic handfuls of live blackworms, plus the odd live mozzie wriggler or bloodworm that gets past the blue-eyes. They did get a good water change and feeding about a week or so before spawning.

I will try to make a more comprehensive post regarding everything but for now I will post updates here http://plotosidae.tumblr.com/

Great info, thanks. Once you see what they do it all seems rather obvious. If you get the chance at any point for detailed pictures of the adults side-by-side to clearly show sexual dimporphism it'd be most appreciated. Is this aquarium exposed to natural light?

Pete

[ If you get the chance at any point for detailed pictures of the adults side-by-side to clearly show sexual dimporphism it'd be most appreciated

I did transfer what I think are a pair to a tank only 7 " deep. While in the transfer container, and side-by-side, from above I observed that the male was slimmer, the leading rays of the male's pectoral fins were definitely thicker and a deeper orange color, and that the ventral fins on the male were pointed, as opposed to the female's being more rounded.

Cool

Good luck!

Several years later, another tank and a new group of Diamena.

The tank (garden tank 2 in my profile) has been set up for barely two weeks and the fish in it for just on one week, a group of 5 flagtails in with a bunch of corys. Temp 21 deg C, soft water with 30% water changes every other day; a daily feeding of live black worms. Sand substrate, floating leaf litter. One of the flagtails appears to be dominant over the others and rests at one end of the tank under the leaves. Noticed the other day at the surface, inverted at an angle taking gulps of air and expelling bubbles from gills under the leaves. I will continue to observe and document with photos where possible.

Put in a yellow plastic lid about 6" in diameter or water lily leaf. I had them spawn that way back in the 80's.