Reedfish Spawning?

[The-Wolf]

over the last few hours I've noticed my reedfish displaying some unusual behaviour.
they are all at the top of the tank, entwining around eachother.
I've never seen them do this in the year or so that I've had them.

do you think they are spawning?
I know there are no confirmed reports of breeding in aquaria but spawning and breeding are two different things.

(click thumbnails for larger image)

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

I don't know much about reedfish in general, but if i saw that going on in the tank i would assume its breeding behavior .
Important question i have to ask: How sensitive to weather/climate/humidity changes are reedfish though? My black khuli loaches are very senistive to changes in the weather and before things like heavy rain or storms they'll frantically swim about the tank like that.

 

[severum boy]

That is very strange, how many do you have?
I often see them in lfs tanks doing this, but mine dont do it in the tank they are in. Ask you say, there are no confirmed reports of breeding in aquaria, but you could be very very lucky. Just in case, even though you may be already doing this, write down in a diary what is happening on each day and if anything changes in eating habits or restlessness.
Good luck!

 

[nmonks]

The-Wolf --

If you can, try and get a hold of "Jurassic Fishes" by Kodera et al. It's an excellent book simply for someone who likes fishes, but it also has about as detailed a report of breeding polypterids as you'll find (almost seven A4 pages of text and two more of pictures). It would appear the key things to look for are changes in the shape of the anal fin of the male (to swollen and pink-looking) and, it would appear from the photos, the usual increase in the girth of the female that accompanies ripening of the ovaries.

Assuming the ropefish are similar (and they probably are) I'd be expecting to see mutual aggression between males (apparently this happens in Polypterus spp.) and competition for access to a single, obviously larger, female. Not really rocket science really, and I'm sure you have these sorts of things in mind. Spawning appears to occur within vegetation, the eggs being scattered on gravel and plants. The eggs of bichirs are least are adhesive and very (50%) sensitive to fungus, at least in the experience of the authors. The free swimming (about 80 hours post spawning) fry eat Artemia and (if not separated) one another!

For breeding, the authors used was soft and acidic but (oddly perhaps) with 0.5g seawater [sic] per litre, and only when the seawater was added did normal spawning (i.e., without hormones) occur. Their conclusion is that seawater contained some trace element that provoked spawning.

Tokis-Phoenix might be on the money. The authors of this book indicate that bichirs are very sensitive to vibrations.

Cheers, Neale

 

[beblondie]

Actually there is confirmed captive breeding of ropefish in 1998 I have been trying to locate any information on it.But offhand it doesn't look like spawning
activity they are sensitive to vibrations and changes in atmospheric changes-Anne

 

[The-Wolf]

thanks for all the replys.
I must admit that thinking back we were having heavy rainfall at the time.

 

[Fella]

For breeding, the authors used was soft and acidic but (oddly perhaps) with 0.5g seawater [sic] per litre, and only when the seawater was added did normal spawning (i.e., without hormones) occur. Their conclusion is that seawater contained some trace element that provoked spawning.
Cheers, Neale

If I was to take a guess at what the additive was that set them off, I'd go with Iodine if that's found in salt mix. I remember reading in one of the baensch atlases that iodine (in a very small amount) was used as a trigger to get polypterus ornatipinnis to spawn. I am just guessing though.

 

[beblondie]

(KJ)sodium iodine 1 drop of 1% solution per 25 gallons

 

[mlawson]

That's very interesting.
At my local fish store I noticed a similar thing. The same thing was happening but in 2 different tanks. I asked if they were spawning and the employee said he didn't know. The curious thing was that that night there was a thunderstorm although it wasn't raining at the time. Afterwards I thought it was just normal for them to do that, but now I'm thinking differently. As far as I know they haven't bred. But I'll ask anyway.

Cheers,
Mike

 

[nmonks]

The "KJ" is a typo in Baensch (p 211, vol. 1). There's no such chemical. Potassium iodide would be KI (the K standing for "kalium", an old name for potassium, and the I for iodine). Sodium iodide would be NaI (the Na in this case being "natrium", an old name for sodium). So the Baensch entry is misleading: either the KI is correct or the sodium iodide. Critically, there's no such chemical as "sodium iodine" so one has to assume that's a typo or a mistake with the translation, but either way it isn't helpful as it stands.

Unfortunately, this information has been endlessly repeated by fishkeeping writers despite the fact that as quoted by Baensch, it's a meaningless factoid.

Cheers, Neale

(KJ)sodium iodine 1 drop of 1% solution per 25 gallons

 

[cjc75]

Greetings all...

I'm a bit new here; but I am not sure if I may have a related issue or not...

I have a pair of Reedfish; they're both different colors... one is darker, more of a brownish and the other is more of a yellowish in color. I can only guess that one is a male and the other is a female... I bought them both at completely separate times, months apart... so I had no idea.

Anyway; for the past couple months that I've had them both... they kept their distance from each other. But then just a couple weeks ago, they started doing this odd behavior described in this thread... swimming around close to each other, wrapping themselves together and hiding out in the same hole (fake hollow log) together. Never saw this behavior at the top of the tank but always at the bottom.

Ever since then... I've been having problems with my water suddenly getting very murky. I recently changed about 75% of the water; a week ago, and then changed out the filters... thinking it was just in need of a good cleaning. But after that, the water kept getting all murky again. At this moment, its pretty bad... worse then it was before I changed the water.

Tonight I went out to feed them; and then turn out the tank lights for the night and I noticed something unusual.

Little tiny... and I mean very tiny, roughly a hairs width or less... and barely less then a centimeter... hundreds of these little tiny... "things" swirling around in the water. All suddenly appearing when I started the feeding... They look like really, really tiny worms, like... tiny fibers, and when looking really close I can see them twisting about as though helpless in the water..

I have no idea where they came from other then the possibility that perhaps the water from my faucet was contaminated or something... when I changed the water. Except for only one catch. This is not my only Tank. They're in a 39gal Tank; and I have a second tank, 29gal, full of various Tetra's. I changed its water out at the same time; and its water has remained perfectly crystal clear all this time.

Well after witnessing this odd behavior in my two Reedfish these past couple weeks and this strange murkiness in their tank that won't go away... and then now hundreds of these little tiny.. worm like things suddenly appearing...

I decided to do a search on a couple Fish/Aquarium Forums out there and found this Thread, and it got me thinking... ...could it be possible? Or is my tank maybe just contaminated with something?

Keep in mind there are other fish in this same tank, and they all seem to be just fine. I have 3 Blue Paradise Gourami's in there; a single Betta, and a pair of Leporinus Fasciatus... and everyone gets along just fine and none of them seem to be bothered by this strange murkiness; nor all these strange "fiber like" worm things...

I hope I don't have a few hundred microscopic baby reedfish suddenly being born in there, cause either way... I'm changing the water again this coming weekend.

Figure I'd ask for some thoughts anyway though after reading this Thread...

One last thought though; I went out to feed about 30 minutes ago... that was when I spotted hundreds of those wierd; worm things...

Then I came back and sat down here and did a search on a few forums and then typed this post. Before I clicked the submit button however, I went back out to turn the light off on the tank; basically gave them about 30 mins to eat and let the frenzy die down... But as I went back out to turn the tank light off just now, I noticed, all those tiny fiber like worms are gone. I saw maybe 4 or 5 of them still though... and they were a bit longer now then all the others were earlier.. unlkess my eyes were playing tricks on me.

I'm starting to wonder if maybe they're some sort of parasite in my tank... but still; can't stop pondering whether or not the possibility that I have a male and female Reedfish and... well... As Doctor Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) said in the first Jurassic Park Movie... "Life... finds a way..."

 

[nmonks]

Baby reedfish wouldn't be teeny-tiny almost microscopic in size. They'd be baby fish size, so something around the size of a small grain of rice.

Wriggling things in the water can be anything, from harmless nematode worms through to parasites of some kind. Blue-green algae fibres can seem to wriggle about in the water current, and in some conditions the water can "bloom" with them in a very alarming (but not immediately dangerous) way. Either way, you probably don't want them in the tank, so a generous water change and a good stir and siphon of the substrate is likely in order.

Cheers, Neale

 

[cjc75]

Thank you! Thats pretty much what I suspected.

 

[JohnFM]

Actually there is confirmed captive breeding of ropefish in 1998 I have been trying to locate any information on it.But offhand it doesn't look like spawning
activity they are sensitive to vibrations and changes in atmospheric changes-Anne

You're probably thinking of

Britz, R. & Bartsch, P. (1998) On the reproduction and early development of Erpetoichthys calabaricus, Polypterus senegalus and Polypterus ornatipinnis (Actinopterygii: Polypteridae). Icthyol. Explor. Freshwaters 9 (4): 325-334.

The relevant bit is:

"Two males and two females of E. calabaricus were maintained in a tank for about three years and fed on a mixed diet of chironomid larvae, beef heart and shrimps. A few days after they had been transferred to a different tank, a few eggs were discovered on Feb. 24 1997. Additional spawning occurred the following year on March 2, March 10, March 18 and March 22 1998. The first of these spawning acts yielded more than 250 eggs, the following three only 10-30 eggs only."