Totally unexpected my Sturisoma whiptails spawned last sunday. There behaviour changed about 10pm and spawning started around midnight. I celebrated with a few beers and watched them untill 6:30am before i had to to go to bed, sober up and get up for work an hour later.
At 7:45am only the male was with the eggs.
Warning! turn down/off the sound on your computer.
The sound has some nasty clicks and white noise.
The pair of Sturisoma sp. whiptails i have are in a 120L tank with other fish.
The water is usually PH6.5, KH1-2 GH2-4 Temp. 26.5-27.5c.
They usually spawn in May and October but this time because of a heater failure (2 heaters in the same week) the Temp. dropped to about 24.5c.
I have also had some electrical problems in the past 6 weeks leaving me without power for a couple of hours at a time. So the temp. would fluctuate slightly.
The whiptails didn't know what was going on. Usually the male grows long whiskers (odontodes) prior to breeding but this time he only had a few long whiskers.
Both the male and female look there best when it is time to breed (not noticeable in the video).
I could tell a few hours beforehand that they would breed that evening. Usually just after the lights go out.
They both look there best, the male has extended whiskers (like a beard) and the female is slightly more rounded than usual. But the depth of there pattern intensifies a lot.
The female will go around the tank cleaning a few potential spawning sites. Usually the aquarium glass. In this case it was the internal filter box.
Strangely they never spawned in any direct flow or in a breeding tube like other whiptails.
But this pair seem to be an odd couple. The female scatters most of the eggs and the male takes very little care of the eggs. I think he just returns to the spawning site out of guilt.
Once the spawning is finished i go around the tank with a tweezers collecting any eggs i can find. They are usually stuck to the substrate.
I place these in a breeding trap were they hatch in 4-6 days depending on the temperature.
This is were it all starts to go wrong. Once the eggsac has gone they start to drop like flies.
I have tried many different foods with 80% spirulina 10% brine shrimp and 10% cyclops-eze been about the best so far but it is still not right. I still lose them, they just live longer.
I also tried the fry in a tank that was wall to wall algae. This was defenitly beneficial but again not perfect.
Water pressure was another factor. I knew the effects of water pressure on fish (the bends) but since i was trying to raise them is shallow water (about 6"
I didn't think it would be a problem.
Thanks to Derek for pointing this out to me. So when i did water changes i added water the same time as i removed water. So the depth of the water was kept the same.
I have plans (in my head) for a tank that i can do large water changes without the water level changing and also a way of keeping the water chemistry constantly the same. If it works i will post about it later.
I have some youngsters that are about 8 months old but i still lost 2 recently. But they were still only about 2". I am kind of convinced there first food is vital for there survival and growth.
Well i hope you have gathered this post is more about the pitfalls of raising the fry than breeding.
They will breed once they are in clean water, good food and they are mature enough .
It is late so i will post photos and more info later.
Forum 
Favoured: 0
