Splashing Tetra ( Coppela Arnoldi)

[ste12000]

Your more than welcome to some Apistogrammas when the weather settles.. As it is now im not sending anything out for obvious reasons!! I wont have any fire reds for a while, the last of the youngsters have just sold, the parents have fry but they are aonly around 2 weeks old. Let me know when your ready and we can sort something out.

Yes im very much into my pencils.. Ive got hundreds of Beckfordi, i spawn them for fun, 6 pairs at a time and raise several hundred, ive just imported Harrisoni which ive never kept before and also have Marginatus, unifaciatus and eques in the fishroom, ive bred the eques several times but have not been able to spawn them in the last few months, im determined to crack them in 2011.. So do you like the pencilfish??

 

[BigC]

Cheers Ste, much obliged.
I like pencils but never kept or bred them before (I've always been into killifish)
No.. the reason I commented was I had an old friend who was into pencils many moons ago. mostly dealt with eques.
I'll drop you a line in the new year to sort things
Have you an email addie (Pm me)
Regards
C

 

[ste12000]

I guessed that you like the killies, whats that beauty in the profile pic??? i breed a few easier species every year(usually after the Midland charity auction where i buy plenty of pairs) but dont have any at the minute, nor would i say i was expert at them..Lovely fish though.

Ill send my email through now.

Sorry if we have hyjacked this thread!!!

 

[Biulu]

Ste: I am still intrigued about this breeding behaviour and would like to refer to my earlier post in which I asked how you achieve spawning in a tank? Do you fill it up only partly with water so they can jump? But then still, they need some sort of vertical object to deposit their eggs...

Love the fire reds too, unfortunately only shipping costs me already 86 USD!

 

[ste12000]

Ste: I am still intrigued about this breeding behaviour and would like to refer to my earlier post in which I asked how you achieve spawning in a tank? Do you fill it up only partly with water so they can jump? But then still, they need some sort of vertical object to deposit their eggs...

Love the fire reds too, unfortunately only shipping costs me already 86 USD!

Hi, sorry, i didnt ignore the first post on purpose.. Copella arnoldi are extremely easy to breed in soft water, i do lower the water level! i used to drop it around 2" and the fish would leap and spawn on the glass tank cover, the eggs could then be scraped off into a hatching container. This works very well, with a full fishroom i have this time looked for a easier method of dealing with the eggs, i normally use artificial silk plants for spawning harlequin rasboras, i modified a few of these for the splash tetras. Basically i pulled off the weighted bottom of the artificial plant, used silicone to stick a aquarium sucker to the base of the plant, then stuck this to the cover glass and dropped the water level a good 6" or so, this has two advantages, firstly the fish cannot jump high enough to exit the tank and secondly i can remove the plant after every spawning and simply drop it into a tub to hatch out.. Its a nice easy(Lazy) method thats already working well after 3 days of getting the 40 fish.
One thing i am observing this time round is the fact that males can be very aggressive of their chosen spawning site, chasing away rival males can lead to poor breeding, im going to breed these fish long term but already i think ill get better results with less fish in the tank.

 

[Gill]

Very Interesting and nothing lazy about your method of spwaning.
I think these would look great in a Paludarium type tank with lots of over hanging foliage for them to spawn on.

 

[lljdma06]

Very Interesting and nothing lazy about your method of spwaning.
I think these would look great in a Paludarium type tank with lots of over hanging foliage for them to spawn on.

Agreed.

Great fish room Ste.

llj

 

[BigC]

PM received Ste, many thanks for that.
Such an excellent idea, utilising inverted silk plants as a spawning medium. Thanks for the information on reduced spawning behaviour due to territoriality by dominant males.
How soft do you need to go with these and what can the pH be dropped to for successful breeding and viable eggs.
A word on the fry rearing if I may. Are the fry very small, are they free swimming upon hatch, do the parents feed on their own spawn. I culture a lot of my own live food, what do you start the fry off on. Paramoecium
Sorry for the amount of questioning just trying to ascertain some basic general information from a dedicated breeder rather than internet lookups.

Regards
C

P.S. The Rivulus sp in my avatar is Rivulus xiphidius

 

[Biulu]

A clever method that mimicks almost 100% their natural breeding behaviour! Actually, the Youtube video mentions that each male guards their own leaf, so I am not surprised to hear you see the same behaviour in your tank.

Thanks for the detailled answer!

 

[ste12000]

PM received Ste, many thanks for that.
Such an excellent idea, utilising inverted silk plants as a spawning medium. Thanks for the information on reduced spawning behaviour due to territoriality by dominant males.
How soft do you need to go with these and what can the pH be dropped to for successful breeding and viable eggs.
A word on the fry rearing if I may. Are the fry very small, are they free swimming upon hatch, do the parents feed on their own spawn. I culture a lot of my own live food, what do you start the fry off on. Paramoecium
Sorry for the amount of questioning just trying to ascertain some basic general information from a dedicated breeder rather than internet lookups.

Regards
C

P.S. The Rivulus sp in my avatar is Rivulus xiphidius

Rivulas xiphidius is one stunning looking fish I like it A LOT!!

The fry from the copella are very small, they hatch at around 36 hours(Depends on temp, its cooler in the fishroom now so has took a little longer) they use the yolk sac for a few days and then become freeswimming, i have a type of infusoria(dont think its paramecium, its a little larger) that i use for the first week or so, after that they can take brineshrimp. I hatch the eggs well away from the parents, ive not experimented yet but have read that the fry will not survive amongst the parents and i can well believe it! i use 2 and 5 litre plastic containers to hold my eggs/fry, i can keep the food close to the fry and keep ontop of the water quality, after several weeks they get moved to a filtered 18x10x10 and then onto bigger tanks as they grow.

Some pics of todays action.

Adult male.

Pair getting ready to jump.

The moment of take off! i missed it by about a nano second! will keep trying!

The result of one male and several females spawning. 180plus eggs..

 

[BigC]

Superb images there...
Thanks for that Ste,
I'm really looking forward to giving these a go.
Maybe we can swap some fish (xiphidius) these Rivulus sp. are not prolific spawners but are well worth the effort.
Let me know when you have some available
One more question....
What is your procedure for transferring the eggs prior to hatch, do you immerse the eggs or is there any point in exposing them to humid air and allowing them to drop off the silk plants, or do you remove the eggs from the spawning medium altogether.
Regards
C

 

[Carlovel1]

Wow, just wow.
Those photos are stunning. How did you manage to make them so clear and un-blurry, something to do with the Shutter speed?
Good luck with the eggs, but you probably won't need luck
Carl

 

[ste12000]

One more question....
What is your procedure for transferring the eggs prior to hatch, do you immerse the eggs or is there any point in exposing them to humid air and allowing them to drop off the silk plants, or do you remove the eggs from the spawning medium altogether.
Regards
C

I simply detach the leaf or plant that they spawn on and submerge it in a 2 litre plastic container with a open airline, no filter or water changes are required until the fish are feeding on baby brineshrimp. Here are a few pics from today.

Todays spawn.

The hatching containers

Newly hatched fry.(still using up his yolk sac)

Wow, just wow.
Those photos are stunning. How did you manage to make them so clear and un-blurry, something to do with the Shutter speed?
Good luck with the eggs, but you probably won't need luck
Carl

No mate, simply a half decent camera and years of practice!! i dont own any specialist equipment nor do i use any editing software except to sometimes crop images. I use a auto setting on the assumtion that the camera is better at selecting the right settings than i am... It is, and it works

 

[BigC]

Many thanks Ste.
Regards
C