Whip de do.

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.

That wasn't jungle music. That was my washing machine on high spin.

Looking foward to the pics Platy, great write up . Am very interested to hear more on your plans for doing wc's without the level and chemistry changing...

Jay

That crazy washing machine music helps the spawning every time!!! Congrats Darren.

Great stuff congratulations. Thanks for posting all the information too.

Daragh

good read darren. good luck with the fry.

Cheers for the comments guys.
I will post more info and pics tomorrow.
The eggs look like they will hatch tomorrow but there is no sign of movement from the fry so it might be the following day.

Congratulations on the spawning. Thanks for posting all that information........ Tom.

Great write up Darren, a really useful reference tool, here's hoping the magic food alchemy formula works on future runs
andrew

ah a daddy again:woohoo: .i'll break out the cigars!nice post.

very good post,good luck with the fry.

Well Done Darren

When you say

"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"

Have you tried live foods+enrichment's. And don't forget the parents eggs will be what they eat so this could be another issue.

When you say the parents are acting in a strange way it is in there interest to "breed" as to pass on there genus but any unusual behaviour normally shows distress they know they want to breed but there maybe something missing........ trying to find what it is dam tricky. One thing to look at is nutrition and the profile of the foods stuffs that the fry eat. Then the fact you are loosing the fry so soon after they hatch sounds like a issue with the egg size. This in turn leads back to the parents and then back to nutrition.

Don't have a clue about the catfish world. let alone breeding them.

But i had a smilier issue with raising marine skunk cleaner shrimp the same issue's as yourself breeding fine, hatch fine, loose half the batch, then the rest would drop off over the weeks to follow. Leaving one shrimp !!!!!

Toyed around with the parents diet and soon there was 20+ living to adulthood. You are what you eat is such at true saying.

Just an idea.

Best of luck

James.

Well Done Darren, Great write up, best of luck with the fry....

hi darren
when i bred rhinoloricaria whiptails, the fry were very hardy and were raised on mostly live foods such as brineshrimp and microworm and as they grew they ate whiteworm as big as themselves. with farlowella they were fed b.shrimp and microworm but the tank was near the window and had a lush algae growth.
i never worked with the larger stuirisoma, but a breeder from n. ireland i knew, bred two species and he also had a lush algae growth in the spawning and rearing tank.
i used to put bogwood and rocks in water and place near awindow or even outside and when covered in algae and other microscopic life, place them in loricarid or tropheus tanks, where they were soon cleaned.
anyway just a few ideas to add to the mix.

@ Derek, Cheers for the input.
I still offer them freshly hatched brine shrimp and microworms. I just didn't mention it above.
I would normally try have some algae ready for the fry but because this was an unexpected spawn i was not prepared.

@James. With these fish it has been a case of two steps forward and one step back.
I add live food's but not enriched. The parents are in with other fish and will eat anything that goes into the tank. That includes; tabimin, earthworm pellets, live brine shrimp, spirulina, cucumber, prawns, white worms, NLS grow and terra A.
Some of these food's are to rich for them but because they are in with other fish it is hard to prevent them eating everything.
Moving them to a empty tank long term is not really an option. But i might place the parents in a 60L for a week or two, feed them a more appropriate diet and try spawn them again.
There is a problem at the egg stage or at least the fry getting out of the eggs. The male should look after the eggs and help the young out of the eggs but he dosent look after the eggs very well at all so i have to remove them.
The last time they had young there were a lot of deformities which IMO was from the fry having trouble getting out of the eggs. They ended up with bent or twisted fins.
I helped some fry from there eggs today and forced hatched some others. Hopefully this will stop the deformed fins.

That is interesting about the cleaner shrimp. I must pop out and have a chat with you about raising them.

What i meant by strange behaviour is just breading behavior. The female going around checking out vertical flat surfaces to spawn on. When she is not doing this she is lying beside the male and quite ofter on top of him.
He normally wouldn't tolerate her lying on him at all.

Not knowing exactly what they are dosent help. They are very similar to some Sturisoma but not the same as any i have looked up. They are also similar to Sturisomatichthys leightoni. But again not the same.

I was busy Saturday and didn't get to collect the glass for the raring tank. It will be delivered Monday.
I have stones in nutrient rich water under 24 hour bright light that should give me some algae in a few days.
In the mean time i will use stones from a planted tank with algae on them to start with.

I know you guys like photo's, so here's a few.

This is the male. hopefully you can make out the whiskers along the side of the face.
Usually when in breeding condition this hairy growth will look like a beard.

He often looks pale like this but when breeding his colour will intensify.


This is the female. She always looks good. The male shows these colours when he is ready to breed and quite often when he is not.
You must remember my photos dont do the justice at all.


This is the hatchery i am holding the eggs/fry in.


This is a top view of the eggs and fry.
The stones are dorset pea gravel the eggs were stuck to.


If you look very closely at this bad picture you will notice 2 fry about 1/3 from the left and 1/3 from the top.
If you have good eyes you may notice the basic pattern the parents have. They are like mini replicas.


Here is a quick clip of fry, eggs and some hatching.

Most of the fry came out tail first. These had trouble getting out of the outer egg. Like the one you see in the video.
I had to help these by removing the remaining bit of egg around there head's.
Some of these were like this for more than 10 hours. I felt i had to intervene.

The few that came out head first had no trouble at all. A couple of minutes and they were free swimming.

Tomorrow after work if there is any eggs unhatched i will feel the eggs between my fingers to see if they are ready to hatch.
If the eggs feel hard i will let them develop more. If they are soft i ill force hatch them by carefully opening the outer egg.
This may seem far fetched but i need to keep as many fry as possible to help me figure out how to raise them properly. That includes raising slower developing or weaker fry.
I lost 4 today as they were hatching but none that i forced hatched.

It is from this day on that i start to lose them. Fingers crossed but i dont expect many/any survivors because i wasn't ready for this spawn. But i will try my damndest:)

Darren
As Always.... a very interesting post.... Best of luck with it all
Lar

Darren,
Best of luck.
Reagrds,
Denis

Darren
your the man!

mickey

Interesting.
I just chucked 9 juveniles into a 180l planted the other day. Am liking them so far.
The otto's aren't....
The baby males are already having squabbles over feeding patches.
They even eat the algae above the water line! (freaky to watch, but they seem happy)

Cheers for the comment guys.

murph wrote:

Interesting.
I just chucked 9 juveniles into a 180l planted the other day. Am liking them so far.
The otto's aren't....
The baby males are already having squabbles over feeding patches.
They even eat the algae above the water line! (freaky to watch, but they seem happy)

I find the young mostly feed along the water line. So this is were i place the food.
Did you breed them yourself?
What size or age are they?
What type are they?

Any info you can give may help me solve this puzzle.

What size are the juveniles.
Also interested did u spawn them,lovely fish.. Will be getting some soon.
When i find some
Regards,
Denis

Platty

The pics all looking great, I see alot of your feeds are marine based !!!! this as with the fresh water feed for marine feed can cause all sorts of agro.

you could write a book ill try to find the link that cracked the nutritional profiling for the marine fish and might have some info for you.

Keep up the good work

You must pop over have a look, i now working on live feed production for retail so always something to be done.

James.

Hi James. All the food offered are commonly fed to fresh water fish even if some are from marine or brackish origin.
Tabimin earthworm pellets, live brine shrimp, spirulina, cucumber, prawns, white worms, NLS grow and terra A.

I wouldn't mind popping over for a chat. Are you still in the shop or 100% concentrating on your own thing?

Platty

I am in the shop on a 3 day week wed/thurs/fri bread and butter needed !!!!

I know that these marine based foods are there in aquaculture but there not there in the wild. the species have evolved over millions of years and here in today's world we feed food stuffs that can only be found in one place in the world !!! (spirulina) to an animal that is used to and evolved on a certain feed. Although these food stuffs make life easy for us and in some cases help with growth color and conditioning there is always a draw back ........ that we can only learn by trial and error As for the future species that are breed on these improvised feeds it is stated that the fry, adults are although growing and coloring up better then wild found fish. They have suppressed features in the way of reproduction and immunity to genetic weakness.

Keeping it simple even though you have all the feeds ...... you are still loosing fry. Its a killer, but think back to nature if its pond scum and weed they need its just a case of finding out which one.

This i think is what the challenge is.

James.

Aquatic_Innovations wrote:

Although these food stuffs make life easy for us and in some cases help with growth color and conditioning there is always a draw back ........ that we can only learn by trial and error As for the future species that are breed on these improvised feeds it is stated that the fry, adults are although growing and coloring up better then wild found fish. They have suppressed features in the way of reproduction and immunity to genetic weakness.:

Very true. Unfortunately i dont know exactly were these fish come from let alone what they eat in the wild. For all i know they could feed off fresh water sponges or the fry could feed of a certain larvae.
I know some similar species have no trouble reproducing in captivity and others are a nightmare to raise. But it's just a case of figuring it out. I make it sound so simple:laugh

These normally only spawn twice a year for me so i dont get much time to try different things to raise them. But i will keep trying and hopefully get there in the end.

It is simple ..... just a killer finding out whats missing !!!!

But keep it up you will get there in the end.

J

Hi guys,
they are supposed to be panamese, but they have the tail extensions of sp. festivum.
Got them in Blanch the other day. They are about 4.5 to 6cm body length, excluding tail extensions (which are a bit variable and a bit crooked), so I think they are about 3-4 months old.
They seem to have milled through some courgette centre in a night. (wasn't the ottos- they won't touch the seeds). Algae wafers are not proving attractive so far. I haven't tried peas yet.




For what it's worth: Did about 30%wc last night. Temp would have dropped to about 23.4 from the usual 24.6. Today all the whiptails are covered in whitespot! (Nothing else has it, yet...). Looks like small changes till they get used to things.

Quick update:

They have gone mad for a plecomin tab I put in earlier. Not the tab its-self, but the bits everything else spits out (probably the algae!).

One of them has figured out that algae wafers are food. Give it a month and the rest will cop on (It took 2 months for my first ottos to figure this out, a month after the farlowellas got the message.)
Some courgette I tried at water-level has gone untouched so far, but it probably won't have fermented sufficiently there yet. Will give it a bit longer and see what happens.