Got My New Dempsey

[Dieses Madchen]

Sorry to hear that you lost your JD Is that the one in your avatar? cause that one is a beaut!

 

[Verminator89]

Yes that was him, that was him back in October 2008 as a juvi, he can be seen in all his glory in my profile, and on the relevant TFF FOTM competition. I read your Jacks ate their spawn, was that their most recent?

My male EBJD bred with his regular Jack female 5 times. I had wrigglers on two occasions, but they just couldnt do it on their own. I managed to separate half the fry away from the female on the 5th attempt by siphoning the lil'wrigglers out into a breeding trap, which i placed in my 70L planted. Unfortunately when they were big enough to release into that tank there were also at the same time (and same age), about 12 platy fry...which in a matter of hours whilst i was at work ate ALL 50 or so of my dempsey fry. Ooops.

One day i will continue down this path...one day

 

[Dieses Madchen]

It was their first spawn. I heard it can be expected from time to time. Plus, they were in a tank with oscars (i didnt know they were a pair)so they may have done it to prevent them being eaten by the oscars

 

[snake007]

I want to breed dempseys now.
All of you have encouraged me, any advice on it?

 

[Dieses Madchen]

I put mine in a tank with rocks, and voila

 

[Verminator89]

I had mine in a sandy set-up with scattered clumps of slate here and there. The slate was mainly used to bed-in the plants which my Jacks loved to uproot (out of spite), but they seemed to like them for spawning on. Spawning tended to happen after i'd skipped a water change for a week (busy schedule) and then did a few extra ones over a few days to make extra sure my water was working a-ok. When i do water changes i try to make it simulate rainfall as best i can, usually using a hose with a fancy nozzle on that allows me to mist the added water into the tank. A usuall hobby no no of using a hose to add water straight to the aquarium, but i think 80% of people in the hobby do this anyway due to time/financial/space issues in life.

Depending how far from wild bred they are will help also. A fish closer to its wild ancestors will have more natural instinct to react to triggers which are caused by us to emulate natural occurences they'd experience in their wild habitat.

Hope that helps somewhat. They are fascinating to watch when spawning, as are most fish.

James