Sheepshead accara spawn ?

Hi guys ,
just a quick one for the experienced folks on the forum . I recently bought 3 sheepshead acara ( Aequidens curviceps ) in my lfs , 1 male and 2 female . Earlier this week i noticed that 2 of them had paired off and spawned on a piece of wood in the tank . After thinking they had eaten the eggs on the second day , i noticed lastnight that they had in fact just moved them to a small pit which they dug in the gravel substrate . On closer examination i noticed that the eggs had started to hatch and i have a batch of 20-30 wrigglers .

The fish are in a 200 ltr tank with nothing else except a handful of endlers for the moment . So i was just wondering if anyone has bred this species before , and if so would you have any advice ?? or is it the same as most other cichlid fry ( frequent water changes , microworm , brine shrimp etc ... ) .

Any help would be greatfully accepted.

Tanks in advance

Martin

Bump ... lol

Hey again guys ,
so the last spawn was successful in that the eggs hatched and even got to wriggler stage , but unfortunately the fry disappeared a day or two after free swimming . I suspect the parents ate them because the only other thing in the tank is a handful of endlers .

This morning i noticed they have spawned again and i am wondering what ppl's suggestions would be ..... move the parents ? or leave them as they are ? or maybe leave them till the eggs hatch and then seperate parents ??

This is only the second spawn by these fish and seeing as they did so well the first time around , i am inclined not to interfere . Would love to know what you all think !

Regards

Martin

Thankfully Draco put that reply as a quote.....else we'd have had to smack him with the plagerism stick....but it hasn't stopped loads of other people on numerous forums pasting that description word for word in an un-quoted post.

I was actually amazed at how many forum posts I found with that and more exact words as being put as peoples personal opinion....and even on a, what looked like, a russian forum (my plagerism checker even seems to translate on-line scripts !).

Anyway, from my own personal words....it has been too many years of brain degeneration for me to remember the finer details of when I last bred these.

But, I would remove the endlers and let the parents do the natural thing.
If these were an endangered species where it were vital to raise a batch, then that would be the only reason I would see for removing the eggs and raising away from the parents.

There may be times in the early stages where the parents carefully hide the young at different times....this is particularly noted with Kribensis. They could have a 'daytime' and a 'nightime' 'room' in the tank.

I've even had kribensis spawn and raise babies (lots of babies, not just 10 or 20) without me knowing in a tank they shared with freshwater pufferfish......if anything can avoid the greedy eyes of a pufferfish then it is either well protected or well hidden. All 100+ babies are now quite large......and the male is still looking after them with superb and interesting behaviour.
The curviceps shows slightly less, but notheless, interesting behaviour.

As Draco's quote says.....watching the parents caring for the young is an experience worth taking.

ian

thanx guys .... the behaviour of the parents the first time around was very interesting , and as draco quoted .... the did dig pits in the substrate and moved the wrigglers from site to site on a few occasions . So much so that i thought they were gone 2 or 3 times before i actually saw them free swimming one morning .

I think this time i'll leave them to it and see what happens again . The pair did very well for a first spawn so hopefully they will learn more this time around

Thanks again for replies

Martin

ok so here's the latest update .... The above mentioned pair have spawned repeatedly over the last few weeks ( approximately 6 or 7 times ) and on almost all occasions they have gotten the eggs as far as free swimming fry . These fry seem to last only a day before the parents eat them . I know new pairs can take some time to get it right but the part that confuses me is , the day they eat the fry ..... they spawn again immediately . Yesterday this happened again .

Wouls anyone have any idea as to how many goes these guys are gonna take , or has anyone had any similar experiences ??. If so how many tries before they got it right ??.

Unfortunately the option of moving the eggs or the parents to a different tank is unavailable .

Tanks in advance for any help or comments

Martin

i see where you're comin from draco so the question isn't silly . But no i have no influences like that and in fact the tank is in a utility room where it doesn't get much traffic past or interference . The bit that gets me is the fact that they spawn so quickly again after eating the previous batch . On 2 occasions it has been within a day of the fry disappearing . Filter intakes etc are all covered too btw so i'm just baffled .

Maybe they are just slow to learn , but i ( like yourself ) would have expected 3 maybe 4 mishaps ..... not 6 or 7

Regards

Martin

We were discussing why discus discus may eat the eggs/fry or are 'poor' parents on a discus thread here recently.

Captive bred fish (I'm guessing these are captive bred) may have certain selection criteria knocked out of them because of the whoosy wrapped-in-cottonwool treatment that captive bred fish are used to:
the parents may be fully compatible for having simple sex, but not compatible enough to raise a family. In nature, that trait is probably soon sorted....but not necessarily in captive bred fish.

There are numerous reasons why parents may be poor parents.....it may get better as they get older, or it may not.

But even in parents that are good, they may still eat the eggs or fry if they feel a threat.....and sometimes it could even be concluded that a response to that threat is to keep laying eggs.

Tank maturity may also be a factor...... ie do the parents sense that the young will have enough scum in the tank to feed upon. eg are pieces of bog-wood like new rather than having a nice healthy growth of scum on them (which will hold many small creatures for the fry to graze upon).?

The parents are very likely keyed into various environmental factors. Now, we don't know how they think exactly, but it could imagined that food resources will also play a trigger.

Nice mature sponge filters are also very good for a grazing area.

ian

cheers for the replies guys . plenty of food for thought there . if thecurrent spawn isn't a success , i'm thinkin of covering the tank completely to cut down on distractions from outside , the next time around