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I need some help with my Clarias sp, both in identifying them and trying to hatch the eggs layed by them.

I have had this pair for about 2years now, and they have grown from 10-12" to about 20-22" and have grown alot thicker in the time that I have had them. I am not quite sure what species that are, and the confuse things even more I have been told that they could be 3 different species by the supposed "clarias" experts, can anyone be of any assistance?

On breeding- I noticed the suspected female (the larger one) getting rather plump, so i just guessed she had gotten lucky and managed a bit of extra food last feeding time. I then did a 70% water change by accident (left the siphon in the tank while i was doing other things) O then filled 20% up that day to get the water level tp 50% and then the additional water to get it back to full over the next 4days. After the tank was full they spawned laying a HUGE number of eggs (in the thousands) that were semi-adhesive, with quite afew floating mid water? Tank is a 8x3x2.5 - 450gal.

All eggs fungused after a few days, any ideas on hatching? here are some pics.

And the adults-

Clarias gariepinus.
Congratulations on getting them to spawn. This is probably the first time someone has gotten them to do it in a tank.

Thanks Silurus.

I was looking through books and countless webpages to no avail looking for info on spawning the. A fellow aquarist sent me an article/document many months back on injecting them with hormones something which has sincesparked some interest.

Any ideas on hatching the eggs?

I cannot guarantee that this will make the eggs fertile, but clariids are known to spawn either over vegetation (a thicket of java moss would be good) or ovr a crude gravel nest.
Maybe providing either will improve the chances of hatching.

My fish room is nearing completion and all the catfish in my 8x3 and some of my other fish will be going into the 2200gallon pond (heated of course), this will free up my 8x2 and 8x3. I was conisdering devoting one of these tanks to trying to breed the fish again and hatch them.

Hi!

I have a friend here in Switzerland that had an aquarium spawn of this common albinos clarias ( sorry can't remember exactly what species). He told me they had spawn several times under a curved brick stone used usually for roof cover.
Many rocks and driftwoods were available in a 1000 gal tank.
Cheers
Yann

As these are C. gariepinus, strictly speaking doesn't this belong under African Catfish?
Pedantic Pete
(although given the numbers of gariepinus now in Asia perhaps not...)

To quote Baensch breeding not possible in an aquarium. perhaps by stripping the eggs and sperm. females over 20" in length produce 50,000-150,000 eggs. pairing occurs at night usually after heavy rains. no care of the spawn.
Some how it feels good when the books are wrong, must give hope for other endeavours!

Have you thought what will you do with thousands of extreemly fast growing clarias?

From what i can gather the eggs develop very quickly depending on temperature. so what temperature is the tank?

can you put you location in the profile.

The temp was a constat 26C the entire time, except for the slight fluctuations as i was filling up such a large portion of the tank.

I have no idea what I am going to do with thousand of clarias, although I heard they don't taste too bad

Sorry I do not want to put my location in my profile for reasons that I do not want to disclose at this point in time, sorry.

Sorry I do not want to put my location in my profile for reasons that I do not want to disclose at this point in time, sorry

check the news any breeding clarias gone missing

Thats a pretty nasty assumption.

Thats a pretty nasty assumption.

thats why i never tell jokes

The temp was a constat 26C the entire time

At this temperature you can expect the 2mm eggs to take 25-28 hours development time.

just thought this might help a little.

Mr Moorii,
You want to email me? I can show you my egg incubators. Clarius are being farmed routinely as a food fish now. I'm happy to show you how to breed them anytime you want. I can show you how to breed that TSN at the same time.

Hi,

Just in case you missed it, there is now an article about breeding Clarias batrachus in the reproduction section of Shane's World.

I will also move this topic to African Catfish now too.

Jools

Here are some links with info on spawning C. gariepinus (seems raising the water level triggers spawning):

Handbook On The Artificial Reproduction And Pond Rearing Of The African Catfish Clarias gariepinus In Sub-Saharan Africa (PDF)
http://www.nefisco.org/downloads/Clarias.PDF

web:
http://www.fao.org/DOCREP/003/W3595E/w3 ... m#Contents