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Hi, I wanted to just quickly share with you guys my driftwood catfish.

I have four lovely t.exilis, I'm not actually sure of gender ratios as they typically zoom past me to hoover up dinner then go back in their hiding spots but here's one with a jelly belly after dinner.


Recently, at the start of June, I arranged my tank differently removing all the plants and adding a lot more wood. This obviously triggered something in them and I found 4 eggs! Only two hatched unfortunately, sorry about the bad quality photos but here is how one looked after hatching. They hatched at different times:


The egg sac was very large in comparison to the fry, and it did take several days for this to go down and they grew well during this stage. Here is a better photo of my 'twins':


And here is a video I took of them once they began to be more active, hiding from the light under a leaf:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMdiY7GC ... e=youtu.be

I took this last photo on the 16th of June, but they did not live much longer past this stage.


I was trying to use microworms as a food as this had worked with corydoras but it was either not readily taken or something else was wrong with the setup. I have very hard water here in Kent, the first spawn was in Northern soft water and I have since moved. However, yesterday, I found 9 more eggs! I will hopefully update as they grow, some may not be fertile or disintegrate like last time. Adults seem to abandon eggs, but lay them under wood - I had to remove the wood to hoover trapped detrius where I noticed an egg and kept hunting until I found the 9.

Already hatching today, must be the warm weather. Looks like only 4 made it but that's double last time so here's hoping a fry will make it to adult hood this time.

Congratulations on the spawn. I had hoped to spawn my group one day but unfortunately I recently lost them all.

I will be following this thread to hopefully repeat your success one day!

Thank you! I'm sorry to hear you lost your group, I'm really falling in love with all woodcats!

They are really an underappreciated fish.

I lost them to a stupid mistake. I had to move them from their dedicated aquarium into a tank with small caves and loricarids while I setup a new rack of tanks. The wood cats went into the caves and the loricarids came in behind them and trapped them in the cave. Then they ate off their skin.

I was bummed but I hope to try again someday when I have a tank I can again dedicate to them.

Andy

They really are, they do hide a lot but I can still enjoy seeing them at feeding times or sometimes they just fancy a swim about.

Unfortunately I've had no survivors this run, not sure what happened. I had 4 hatch and then they've all shrivelled up and died
I got some good advice from another user, and will be setting up two 17x12x12 side by side. One for the 4 adults, and one will be kept mature for future eggs to go into.
They lay eggs in the mulm so maybe a mature tank is really key here, will update with any more progress.

Not had much to report, a few eggs that disintegrate here and there but never a big clutch...until yesterday! I found 15 eggs in total, and have separated them this morning into 9 healthy and 6 questionable. A gentle amount of meth blue and a katappa leaf has been added to the healthy ones, and a stronger dose of meth blue for the ones that look like they're developing fungus just to see what happens. Trying not to count my woodcats before they hatch...

4 hatched last night, two more this morning and 3 eggs left to hatch! Very excited



Just an edit so I'm not continuously talking to myself the last 3 hatched in the night, so now I have 9!

02/04/2014 picture edit:



03/04/2014 edit:

Unfortunately lost a fry, down to 8 now. Not sure what happened, still got their egg sacs for food so not put anything in yet.

07/04/2014 edit:

Got some good advice about the dangers of bare bottom tanks with bottom dwelling fry. They are in a 40l aquarium with a sand base now, but it may have come too late. I'm also trying to keep them fairly dark to encourage them to feed but only time will tell how well this works, I can no longer inspect and count them like in the tub.

08/04/2014 edit:

Found three bodies, can only see two alive in the tank. Not really optimistic either. The filter was unfortunately not mature, so I think it's a question of water quality here despite daily water changes. Hopefully I can get more eggs out of them soon, so I can try again...

Hi!!

Where did you find the eggs??
Cheers
Yann

Hi Yann,
The eggs were purely scattered about on the substrate the first few times I found eggs, most recently some were found in tall grassy plants. I'm always hoping to see more eggs but nothing since last failure...

Hi!!

Thanks for your answer, I have this species, but never take time to check in the plants and stuff, I ll have a look
Cheers
Yann