Meeting Notes

June, 2011

Speaker: Eric Bodrock
Topic: "Spawning Oddball Fish"

61 people present, 205 items in the mini-auction.

Tatia intermedia

40 gallon breeder. Temp. 60-74 degrees. Décor: assorted caves, pipes rocks and sunken yarn mops. Substrate: natural sand.

Notes: 50% water changes every other week. Low light with heavy overhead plant cover. Other fish were present. PH: range 4.7-5.0 (oak leaves, elder cones). Diet: live blackworms, assorted frozen bloodworms and dry foods. (Blackworms are magic. They get fish in condition! Rinse them and keep them clean!)

Egg cluster is the size of a tennis ball, like frog eggs. Begin hatching in a day, takes three days to completely hatch, then three days to absorbe the egg sack. You get 600+ of them. They hide. They do not come to the food, you need to bring the food to them.

First foods: feed "Sponge Grunge," egg powder, rotifers, green water. Add java moss, which harbors micro critters.

Second foods: microworms, live baby brine shrimp, Cyclops-eze, crushed flakes.

Eric uses bleach in his brine shrimp hatcher to help eggs decapsulate and hatch easier. Microworms: he puts spirulina powder, vitamins in the substrate with the microworms to gut load them – helps the fry grow a lot!

Sift out the bigger fry from the smaller fry.

Observations: nocturnal, not active, especially the young. Look for egg cluster - easy to miss. Feeding the fry early on is very important. Growth rate very slow, easy to sex, internal fert. Trigger: drop then raise the temperature.

Elder cones have antifungal properties that help the fry.

Split up your spawn, just in case there is a problem in one tank.

"Be the fish." Try to see the tank from the fish's point of view. Fish in nature need to be comfortable to spawn. No neon colored decor. No light underneath. Paint the tank black on the bottom or use rounded gravel. Fish in nature have overhead light from above and there is a lot of litter on the bottom. Fish prefer to be in subdued light. Low light.

Tatia perugiae

Swim around the top of the tank in the meniscus (at water surface) looking for food. Prefer higher pH. 15 gallon tank. temp: 78F, TDS: 223. Décor: caves, pipes, rocks. Substrate: aragonite sand (pH buffer). Diet: blackworms, live food.

Lamprichthys tanganicanus

Killifish from lake Tanganyika, in Africa. Beautiful fish. High pH: 8.0. Aragonite sand, crevice spawners, yarn mops for spawning, medium overhead light. Use a mop with rubber bands around it and the killifish get into the middle of it. "huge eggs! The eggs bounce!" The cooler it is the longer it takes to hatch. Warmer, and they hatch sooner

Feed babies bbs.

They shock out and die from stress of transport. Transport as eggs or very early on. If their tail end is lower in the water, do a 30% w/c as this means they are stressed out. Transport young ones in breather bags.

Rainbowfish

Egg scatterers. Use yarn mops. They produce eggs every day. They produce like crazy. Some will not swim through a yarn mop, so a mop sunken on the bottom is better. "Be the fish." Offer them different things so they can pick where they want to spawn. Eric showed photos of some of the newer rainbowfishes.

Killifish

Some like to swim through a mop and spawn, up high in the mop. Others will lay eggs at the bottom of the strands. Check your mops, and shake them to be sure the fish are out of the mops before removing from the water.

Peckoltia compta L134 (Leopard Frog Pleco)

Male has tall dorsal. 30 gallon, pH: 6.7-6.9. Temp 76F, TDS: 270 ppm average. Décor: caves of all sizes, rocks, java moss, anubia. Substrate: natural sand. Use dither fish to keep them comfortable. They prefer a cave that is bigger at the opening and tapered to the back. Food: live blackworms, daphnia, glassworms, frozen bloodworms and plankton, SERA Catfish Chips, SERA Viformo tablets.

15-25 eggs in cluster, bright gold in color and they stick to each other. Sometimes the male will kick them out of the cave, but Eric has never been able to successfully hatch them without the father. With plecos, the magic age is 3 years old to breed. Eric separates the fry from the male, which puts the male in breeding condition again, and this keeps the other fish from eating the fry.

It takes 4-5 days for the fry to absorb the egg sac. Semi-nocturnal. Can be aggressive at feeding and when guarding nest. Slow growth rate, faster when left with adults. Seasonal breedersm, March through June. 40% water change per week, moderate light with no overhead plant cover. Other fish were present, breeders were about 3 years old.

Ivanacara adoketa

"A little weird South American dwarf cichlid." When she is breeding she'll turn jet black, then she'll be charcoal, then silver. She can change colors in the blink of an eye.

20 gallon tank, pH: 4.7-5.0. Temp: 74-76F. Decor: Assorted rocks, pipes, flower pots, anubias, java fern, and natural sand. Put a mirror beside the tank to keep the male occupied – it keeps him from beating up the female. Diet: live blackworms, daphnia, glasssworms, assorted frozen and limited dry foods. Use a UV sterilizer to kill off bacteria and protect the eggs. 1/2 spawns are in a cave 1/2 are in the open. Babies stay under the female, male guards the fry. When startled the babies go straight into the substrate. Major aggression when growing. If you have room, spread them out.

Hemiloricaria (Rineloricaria) L10a (Red Lizard cat)

Male gets hair over body when he gets ready to breed. Male is brown, female is red. 15 years ago females were red, now anything goes. Diet: live blackworms, live BBS, green beans, assorted frozen such as bloodworms. 30 gallons with a lot of circulation, pH: 6.8 steady! Temp: 80F. Pipes for spawning – pvc, bamboo, etc. Lots of current! Vertically spawn in cave/pipes. Set up some caves vertically to help them spawn.

Spawns range up to 60 fry. Blue green eggs 2.5 mm, leave male with eggs, young show red female color, males color in 4-5 months. Shy fish, not active. 50% water change weekly.

Notropis chrosomus "Rainbow shiner"

From Centerville, Alabama. Males keep color all year round, they breed all year round. 10 gallon tanks, 74-76 degrees, stone spawner (stone rollers), they make a pit. Put stones in a flower pot saucer. They circle around in a frenzy and lay eggs in substrate. Plastic canvas in clear cereal bowl full of gravel and the eggs fall down and hatch in 24 hours then 36 hours to free swimming. Green water for fry. Very small when hatched. At 11 days feed microworms. Treat them like a tetra. Will live for 3 years in the home aquarium. Can't process protein from the black worms.

Hypancistrus zebra L046

Spines on pectoral fins. Max 3 inches. 30 gallon, near 90F with lots of air stones, power heads, lots of oxygen, prefers bells to spawn in. No substrate, filter sponge, powerhead w/foam cartridge. Diet: BBS, frozen foods such as bloodworms, plankton, krill, daphnia, glassworms and scallops. Eric thinks you have to have a dominant male that entices the females to the cave. He is convinced that they have to be kept in a large group to spawn. Very neat fish! Most he's ever had is 15 from a spawn, but he usually gets 2 or 4. Growth rate is moderate. Use lots of cherry shrimp for clean up. Eric isolates the male in a mesh tank keeper to isolate it from the fry. Load up the tank w/brine shrimp. They need to lay in the brine to eat well, the shrimp will clean up the excess food. Best rate ever in growing them out.

Very, very shy fish. No one knows the trigger to get them to spawn. Get the temperature up for them.

Synodontis schoutedeni

These guys get big: 10 - 11 inch fish. Male has much more intricate pattern. 75 gallon, 77F, pH 7.8, assorted rocks, artificial plants, and driftwood. They go into a T position like cory catfish to breed. Substrate: natural colored pea gravel. Undergravel filter w/ power heads, twin tube 40 watt fluorescent bulbs. Diet: live blackworms, frozen mosquito larvae, plankton, bloodworms, and assorted dry foods. Community set up with other fish present! Don't come out at all when the lights are on. Filter squeezings to feed them. They stir all over the place in the night. At 35 days you see bigger fish feeding on the young siblings. Out of thousands of fry, Eric raised 24. Trigger: move them to another tank! Egg scatterers. Peaceful towards each other. Eric's were F1 fish, easier to spawn than wild. Fish need to be several years old to spawn.

Sewellia lineolata (Reticulated Hillstream Loach)

Female chases the male. Big one gets under the small one, push into water column, they lock together and you see a string of eggs fall out of them and into substrate.

20 gallon, pH: 7.0-7.2, temp: 74 F, assorted sized pebbles, clam shells and java fern, Diet: Live blackworms, daphnia, frozen bloodworms, BBS, crushed flakes. Powerhead w/ sponge filter provides strong current. The loach fry were very small and almost invisible. Put in a shoe box with air stone. They grow quickly up to 41 days then growth slows down. Pile rocks up the Porette foam wall. Put two pair in and let them go. Foam is pourous and eggs get hatched in the foam to feed on debris. Some people have found fry in the canister filter because that's where the detritus is for them to feed on. Not hard to spawn, you just need to observe them. Trigger: Current!

Hypancistrus sp. L236

Ingo Sidel has the L book with all the L species in it. Variable in color patterns. Temp: 80F, pH: 6.6, cave spawner. Male needs to stay with the babies in the cave. If the babies leave the cave, they die.

Submitted by Sherry Mitchell