Parvulus

Heres a little parvulus ‘snake’ dance …
It is not always easy to see the red spots – and difficult to photograph them, – but they are beautiful in the flash light.

[video]http://http://youtu.be/fEQFNzLQPSM[/video]

As you can see in the video clip of mine, its also around dinner time this male is ‘dansing’ or flashing, but its the same, – no not directly spawning but courtship behaviour it is. Impressing the females, making them interested. And probably also stimulating the female maturation.
And I am sure your male is big enough. They are small, I have a small male like yours two, same size almost, he has eggs now. They might still continue to grow though, but it sounds like he is starting to feel like a grown up fish 🙂
But you may be right, – its the beginning of courtship behaviour, they may not be quite old enough, the females may not be there yet.

That is really wonderful news, congratulation.
I find the parvenus a really energetic little fish so I am not surprised of the behaviour.

Now you are in for a challenge though 🙂 – feeding the fry if they develop. And of course the other fish in the tank. I am not sure what you should do here. Moving the fry when they are free swimming is probably very difficult, they are very sensitive then. Is the tank too big ? Because otherwise you could catch the grown up fish immidiately after the fry has left the cave. They will hide at the bottom and not get hurt.
You may be surprised though that even with six grown up fish some fry might still survive.

It sounds like you can look into the cave which is a real advantage, because then you can follow if the develop properly. The eggs will in a few days develop little larvaes hanging from each egg and these will develop over some days, – about a week altogether – at some point they will kind of turn to horizontal position just before becoming free swimming. Depending on the cave, they will either stay in this for some more days – or disappear out. I have one cave which is too ‘open’ and the fry dissappear immediately, but most times they stay.

You should think about food now, thats for sure. Do you have any experience with infusoria ?
I have some tiny infusoria which I keep as a culture, thats quite helpful because then I always have some ready, but there are ways to make infusoria fast. I could find some other peoples suggestions, but maybe there are some people here at the forum ??
I am not sure how to do this .. I have done it with putting a salat leave in boiled water, – it works, but I am not sure if there are better ways.
Artemia will be too big, – micro worms are also too big in the beginning. When you think of how small the fish are, well .. what do you think the fry will be .. 🙂 very small. Maybe vineager eels could be a food that could be taken, I have also used that.
You need to start it right away if you are making infusorie and you need to think how big the tank is – I think you cannot really ‘target’ the fry and feed a little bit each day, – you need to feed in abundance in order for any little tiny fry to find the food.

Have you got some dense areas of the tank where theres a lot of javamos or some peat which the fry can hide in ? I think this is important.

But tell us more about the exact tank size and how the eggs are developing …

Really exciting news !

Hi again.
I would not use egg yolk fry food, as you say – it will pollute the water. And they wont take it I am pretty sure about that.
Once the fry is out of the cave, and once they themselves have no more eggyolk – you will loose sight of them totally. Which means you will not be able to target any feeding. They will dissappear into some of the dense areas of the tank, most likely at the bottom in the beginning, – they will also of course be hiding from other fish, so they are really invisible for probably about a month or two months.
And then … where to add food ?? :dry:
So in my opinion one needs to cultivate these infusorias and add to the tank, – and I dont think you need to worry about polluting the tank or other fish, even theres quite a big amount of infusoria.

After about a week or so, you can already start adding things like microworms, and if you feed the other fish with artemis nauplia theres also a chance that the fry will feed on the tiniest of these.

So I would feed infusoria for about a week, then move to if possible, vineager ells or microworm for a week or two, then leave it to only be artemia – or of course you can change between these, but infusoria is only important in the very very beginning – they will move to other type food quick.

The tank size is okay, not overly too big. – and why dont you as calm as possible, when over the next days you have the chance, just net out one fish at the time and move the adults.. leave the cave and the male and move the other fish ? I think theres a better chance then.

🙂 yes, I agree, they are incredible. The males will most often stick to the cave as glue, and you can even lift it up with the male staying inside it. I will not recomend that though, – the male will stay as long as he can, – but might suddenly get scared and jump, or get stressed. But its amazing how ‘faithful’ he is.
If you dont get the small fry out this time, – I would still keep feeding if I were you, – you can never tell. Sometimes adult fish dont eat the fry, even they gobbel up moina 🙂 … or the fry is just amazingly good at hiding. I would not be surprised if you had two or three little parvulus appearing in two months time 🙂 ..

When you place the cave, it is an advantage to test it before if you have a good look into it, – but be careful not to lift only one end of it up, as the bubblenest then could slide out. I often place the whole cave on something so that I have a good look in it.

I like the way you describe how he went for the bamboo, maybe thats worth while trying. Mine take mostly the clay cat-fish caves or the film cannister, – but I had a pair of linkeis using the same kind of flower pot as in your tank. They didnt mind.

:cheer: – its all right, I understand your ‘condition’ 🙂 … and actually I realised, – we might have to work on a more detailed ‘guide’ for coming parents .. I couldnt find anywhere where it says something about how many days for hatching and so … here on the homepage. We should have a more precise guide. But feel free to ask any questions.

They will hatch in a couple of days. 4-6 days after they will be free swimming, – and then possibly stay in the cave some days, maybe a week more ..
But it varies a bit from male to male also

I wouldnt worry about changing water right now, – in both ways actually. Normally I find that they do fine with lesser waterchanges also in periods, – its not as if you have a very ‘loaded’ tank producing lots of waste. But also, I have changed water not knowing that males were sitting in caves, and I didnt do any damage, – but still better wait a while.