Re: johannes' Hypancistrus sp. L260 (Queen Arabesque) spawn!!!
I have some suspicions that older juvenile L260 crept into a recent spawn and consumed the eggs/larvae. The adult breeders never seem to object too much whenever an older fry enters their breeding caves. This has made me decide to be more careful about leaving older fry too long in the breeding tank. The problem is that I already did remove all those I could find much earlier but some must have hid in the occupied breeding caves so i missed them. I removed 11 fry of about 3/4 inch. I just set up a new breeding tank and so far have only moved the males. I'm conditioning my females still in the former breeding tank for about 2 weeks. During this more thorough removal of furnishings I discovered I still had 7 more juveniles nearly 1-1/2 inches long. I knew I missed some but I thought only 3 remained so i was quite surprised to find i actually had 7. I have 18 juveniles in the range of 1-1/2 inches.
I lost a more recent spawn of about 16 fry freshly released from their breeding cave. The reason I lost that brood was I made too large and too cool of a RO water change. The older fry and adult were not bothered in the least but the very young fry were much more delicate and the change too drastic. I expect to get a couple spawns fairly soon after I recombine the sexes because the females are becoming very laden with ripe eggs.
I have had better success using very soft water than than tap water. My tap water is not bad compared to some locations in the USA. The pH is 7.4, KH 6, GH 7 and TDS is 340 ppm. Borderline moderately soft/moderately hard. For breeding L260 i prefer to keep them in water with a TDS of about 50-75 ppm, KH 2, Gh 3 and the pH naturally drops to about 6.4 to 6.6. I don't use any acid to lower the pH but I think the combination of low KH and presence of wood and fish wastes is enough to lower the pH.
Last edited by apistomaster; 31st Aug 2009 at 23:49.
Old fish breeder. SA Dwarf Cichlids, Hypancistrus sp L260, L333 and Peckoltia L134 breeder. Also Sturisoma, Dwarf Corydoras spp, wild Discus and Killiefish. Like breeding Characins and wild Betta spp too.
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Originally Posted by dolphex_tang
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