I'll be treading carefully

Tonight is the night to prepare breeding for 2 species of fish that are not without their particular aggressive breeding problems.

Nanochromis transvestitus are the first to be placed into their breeding......but here is the problem: my female is particularly aggressive.

then another aggressive fish is Fundulopanchax sjoestedti.....males can simply rip a female apart. For this breeding, the female has been raised to a bigger size than the male in separate quarters. They will be introduced and watched, and then separated.
Nanochromis can be bred in a community tank without any watching, but as this species is (for some reason) quite expensive then I'm not taking chances.

Sometimes, breeding of the killie goes ahead with no problems and often in a community situation (of equally robust fish). But, as decent specimens are getting to find here, I'm not taking any chances.

In some respects, this is a wasted post as people are probably only interested in 'success stories' but I don't mind reporting failures.

ian

Not a wasted post at all Ian. I'm sure you'll have success,but if not,then we,and you,should stand to learn from your experience.

Any pics of the set-ups?

best of luck.just googled them there very cool fish

Well.....um so far, I have managed to find the male and placed him in the breeding tank.

The female keeps burying herself in the peat in their raising tank; the male sjoestedti is in the same tank system but behind a divider and is eager to leap onto the floor as soon as I lift the lid....let alone spend half an hour trying to find a female transvestitus in the peat substrate.

And....I'll give no prizes for guessing..........the water is like black coffee. Great for the fish....but not for me.

So....first 'failings' and a lesson to be learned: fish kept in their ideal conditions are not always ideal for us to see them.

@Acara......I could take a picture of a bag of peat or a glass of coke and easily pass it off as a picture of the set-up.

Yep John, if I get any eggs you can have first refusal. These are quite a nice strain of sjoestedti (no locale name came with them, but they know what they are).

ian

Fingers crossed for nanochromis

bart wrote:

Fingers crossed for nanochromis

Looking at them this morning, the Nanochromis have settled into their new tank. There is a glass divider to make sure that both acclimatise evenly before putting them together.

So...now for some water changes and to make sure that the pH gets to around 5.5 and low conductivity else there is decreased chance of a non-aggressive spawning and less chance of the offspring being of any decent quality.

The male's side has a foam-bath going at present (the protein skimmer is in operation producing loads of foam and turbulence......the water they have been in is very rich in organic material and so protein skimming works well).

I see that Gav has some in stock, so I may even have a goo to see if his are breedable if this female turns as aggressive as she has in the past.
When raised from being young with a group of them, she simply killed all males as soon as her red belly glowed. One swipe to the top of the eye is all it took in each case: hence why I'm trying a method that I found always worked for Teleogramma and other Nanochromis.

By the way, has anyone seen N.nudiceps around this country (I prefer nudiceps to be honest).


Ian

Like i said fingers crossed
Speaking of killing males. One of my dwarf cacadus female killed male recently. As soon as the wigglers started to swim. It happened to me for the first time, long therm couple too.
I guess mothers instinct can drive them into insanity sometimes

I wouldn't mind a few spare eggs if their going Ian .
John

we get the nanochromis in from time to time Ian.I'll see if I can dig some out for you.

@Gavin....cool stuff. You mean the nudiceps?

@John G......as always, if I get eggs from the killies then "yep".

I've put the female with the male this afternoon.....and she is being the same hyper self.

ian

yes indeedy.

Hi Ian,

far from a wasted post in fact, i think an interesting topic. We see posts from time to time with a title starting with "Finally" got species x to breed after trying for years. We see the results of the eventual success and dont get any insight into the failed attempts to breed these "difficult" species along the way. If you understand why an attempt failed, its something new for your collected knowledge on the species and something to ensure is right for the next attempt. Only when we fail and have no clue as to why, do we not actually learn something. LIke I need to tell a chemist that one
I think more sharing of the failures along with the eventual successes would help more people to succeed in breeding difficult species.

CHeers,

Bill.

BillG wrote:

Hi Ian,

far from a wasted post in fact, i think an interesting topic. We see posts from time to time with a title starting with "Finally" got species x to breed after trying for years. We see the results of the eventual success and dont get any insight into the failed attempts to breed these "difficult" species along the way. If you understand why an attempt failed, its something new for your collected knowledge on the species and something to ensure is right for the next attempt. Only when we fail and have no clue as to why, do we not actually learn something. LIke I need to tell a chemist that one
I think more sharing of the failures along with the eventual successes would help more people to succeed in breeding difficult species.

CHeers,

Bill.

Really, the main aim of the thread is for people to talk about their experiences of the fish that 'do not breed to a recipe'.

As we know, many fish will breed with a male and female in the tank as simple as that; others need some 'trick' recipe (eg Bettas....there is a recipe for guaranteed breeding).

But Nanochromis, Teleogramma, Steatocranus are cichlids that, whilst I've had successful breedings off them all, I have not found a fail-proof method that I could write a simple list for someone else to follow.

I have never found that buying half a dozen specimens of any of these genera and waiting for a 'pairing' really works (once or twice, but not a recipe).
After paying 120 quid for 6 fish, you often end up having paid 120 quid for one fish !! (I'm not too sure that that is a good option purely for the sake of breeding)

It is they hate of conspecies in the tank and the relentless aggression (irrespective of the tank size....if a 2 foot tank isn't big enough, then a 6 foot isn't big enough) that is a problem.
Some of the tank-bred individuals are less aggressive than their wild bothers and sisters though.

Then, on top of that, the specialist water conditions can, in some species, impact on breeding much more than we see with, say, Discus.

Anyway, the female and male Nanochromis are still alive after a day with each other. There is now some tranquility in the tank, the glass divider is still there but allows the fish to swim either side of it at will. They can then settle on the bottom and keep the other one in sight if things get a bit too much for one of them.
So long as the fish are staying near the bottom and not hanging 3/4 of the way up the tank, I'm happy.

ian

the Nanochromis transvestitus are a very interesting fish and beautiful to look at, i have watched them in Jamie's tanks and by going on what Jamie said of his experiences with them they are not an easy fish to have success with, one of the things that stuck in my mind from the conversations with Jamie was how sensitive they can be to water changes, that along with their agresion and tendancy to murder each other at a whim!

Speak of the devil and he will appear, I had a visit today from Jamie and mentioned this thread, so he said he will pop in and post, another thing he was talking about , he might elaborate himself was their prefered spawning sites, what worked and what did not work. he can fill ye in in detail......
over to Jamie!

Hi Ian - Good luck with the sjoestedti - this thread has reminded me that I stored a load of sjoestedti eggs this time last year - and forgot about them - must see if I can get them out and what they are like. I had a pair which spawned every day - just used a bare tank and a black wool spawning mop and the eggs were then fairly easy to collect. I'm sure you know this but they are fantastic jumpers and will find the smallest gap to get through. I fed them on earthworms which they gulped down - I think that helped with the spawning.

hi ian,
my experiance with transvestitus are as follows. putting the male in and removing him again over and again didnt work for me. the female would just sit there and wait for you to put him in then attack, and with the male not knowing the set up in the tank he got battered everytime. i found that i needed to use a 3ft lg tank covered in leaf litter, caves and wood. put the male in at night and let him get used to the hiding areas. he will soon know to stay away. it usually takes a few weeks for the female to except him, but when she does they usuallf form a fairly good bond.
Dont over do water changes, 10% max and regular. they are prone to hole in the head if water isnt perfect. ph 6 or below and very soft, i use splash tetras as dither fish which arent bothered with until breeding. ive not found a trigger with these fish, and found it best just to make sure water is ok, good feeding and let them get on with it naturally.
jamie

concise and to the point Jamie, may i ask what do you feed them on to get them into condition

I have found blood worm and chopped earth worm does the trick as well as terra pro. Small feeds a few times a day

@ricko, I've never experienced hole-in-the-head with any of the Nanochromis species.
I'd be interested in analysing a few that have died from it though to check if my theory on holds true for these as well as for other cichlids.

It would be interesting to see what others have used to get a breeding from Nanochromis.

I did most of my Nanochromis breeding before N. transvestitus was discovered (although I would also be pretty sure that some of the odd specimens I had a "Nanochromis" from the wilds may well have been this species as there were a few unidentified/un-named species going around back then).

The most successful method for Nanochromis is the one I'm using here.....but still never a guarantee. It is very similar to the methods I used for breeding Steatocranus (albeit sporadic breedings), Teleogramma (albeit sporadic breedings), Siamese Fighters, and Chocolate Gouramis and other anabantoids (but not all gouramis though), in that the male owns the territory but the female triggers the breeding (and hopefully doesn't suddenly bring an abrupt end to the breeding !!!).

ian

The pair of Nanochromis are doing well.....female is even getting a bit fatter and the belly even redder.
Both are guarding a cave. So it looks tentatively promising....but you never can tell.

only seen this thread now and glad i did, alot of good info already being given that i can't wait to keep reading. i have only tried with purchased eggs in the past but without much sucess, then started keeping an eye in shops but they seem rarely stocked

anyways good to hear its so far so good and if you can could you maybe take some pictures?

I didn't spot them John.
Were they in good nick? as it is always useful to have a few extra female sjoestedtis.

On a similar vein, I had to separate gardenieri tonight as the male was a bit too heavy handed with the female.

And on an even more similar vein, I spotted a male Crenuchus spilurus aggressively guarding something under a piece of wood......came out with gills flaring at me and anything else that ventured by.

JohnH wrote:

There were some Sjoes in Seahorse last weekend - but sadly all were females.

John

seen them alright, in the left corner if i'm not mistaken, was quite disapointed myself to see no males...

Well does that igmillichip fella have a dead male or female Nanochromis?

nope. And I have babies as well, still with large egg-sacs but partially free swimming.

The female is strongly defending the nest, but beckons the male over to do something in the nest when she demands.

Now, disaster is always around the corner.
Irrespective of the outcome, I'll have no problems posting the outcome of this.

Thus far, the method I used here was the same as I'd used for other riverine african goby cichlids in the past (the glass divider method a la siamese fighting fish).

I do have some video shots of pre- and post-egg laying, but my laptop is so full I can't process the videos yet.

ian