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Hi Rafael,
That sounds clearly …..Let’s make a new date and do not loose good mood!
What kind of filter do you have? Inside filter? Is there a opportunity for a small fish to go inside?
I have put on all my filter incomings a piece of foam, because before I found always shrimps inside.
And once three young Tanichtys micagammae swam up the waterfall of my rucksack filter and survived inside except one, but I found them early because I missed them. I set the filter then higher and my actual rucksack filters have got a sieve net in front, so I hope no fish tries to swim up to find a new territory ….Even behind my first Hamburger Mattenfilter for my linkei I found four offspring. So I have changed it with a more finer one.
Yes it is sad, but given the water parameters and Rafaels preparation for the introduction I would say it is just unhappy coincidence. I am sure it will be fine net time 🙂
Hi all,
@Dorothee: I got a small inside filter that has a completely closed part where the water is sucked in. All around this entry, there is a filter sponge. I dont think this causes much harm…
I will send you an e mail concerning the new date.Hello everybody,
I am pretty much irritated by my paros. I had a look at the tank today morning to see how the two left females are doing. I also arranged a new meeting to get another male from Dorothee.
This morning, as mentioned above, I watched the two females again and was surprised to see something really strange in the front of the tank… Whitish little spots, maybe the size of mustard grain (about 1mm in diametre). Since I have been breeding Bettas and other Fishes as well, I was quickly reminded of the Eggs of Betta. The only strange thing was the fact that these eggs were neither covered, nor did they swim (Lay in the front of the tank in the Peat granules.)
I had to go out for a scouts meeting but when I came back, I ran down the stairs to see wether they were still there or not. Luckily, they were and I got out my microscope and observwed them underneath the lens. They do really resemble to betta eggs. I also checked the Caves and saw one paro swimming out of one. but No nest or something similar. I did not find fetuses or small larvae in the eggs which means, after my experience that these eggs are only a few hours old. The white color is also an indication that they have been fertilized. The yolks of betta eggs are white and I did not find fungi on the eggs. I took a few pictures, The mircoscopic pics are taken with a magnification of 100. Still, the Paros do not show too much of interest on the eggs. I really have no clue where these eggs might come from. They can not be snail eggs because none of the species I keep produces something similar.
What a change… yesterday, I was worrying about what I did wrong and today I think there might have been some spawning. There must be a male though doesnt it? What do you say to the pictures? Could this be a “unusual” nest or what else?Hi Rafael!
If that are eggs, perhaps they got thrown down from a leave or out of a cave when you where searching for the male.
Normally the Paros make them to form a clutch.But if you didn’t find the male and those white eggs are fresh perhaps the female lost them without being fertilized?
But I can’t believe, as you described your emptying of the tank, that you failed to see the male …
So let’s go on to give the girls another man next weekend!:unsure: hmm…
If you have got a paro swimming out of a cave, – this to me indicates that theres ‘something’ going on. Normally the cave is the males property, and I would actually say I rarely see females go into a cave unless somehow in relation to spawning or a male inviting her. So if you have one of the fishes going in and out of the cave, – ? … are you quite sure you have two females then ?
The eggs look like paro eggs for sure. And it does happen with some fish who are either unexperienced or perhaps it can also be in stressing situations, – that spawning is attempted, but the airbubble nest is not good enough – or the fish hasnt learned the tecnic or … somehow the material of the cave is difficult for the eggs to stick on to … and then they roll out of the cave.
I have had it happen a few times.But to me it is strange when you dont have a male in the tank. I do not think that the female will give off eggs with no male in the tank
I cannot explain the disappearance of the male. Sometimes a female-looking fish is a male, but I cannot say this about your two. The male, however, might have been present most of the time in its cave. A male that found a good cave and is ready for courtship and spawning is rarely to be seen outside again. I always recommend to put only one cave in a tank for one pair only, and place this with the open front towards the front glass, in order to be easily inspected by the light of a torch.
The “eggs” are Paro-eggs since there are no other fish present.
We had several observations that females cared for the clutch in the cave after the male disappeared or died. Linke saw this with linkei, I with paludicola.
But always a male was present before.But we have had very few observations, too, that a female produced eggs withou any male present. There may be several different reasons for this. In any case, why are the eggs not in their cave but distributed outside? Either you did it by your search for the male, or (more likely) a female did it by not caring perfectly for the clutch because disturbed by anything, perhaps the other female. A trio is not always the best setup. After forming a pair, the second female should be taken out. In nature everything is different. Nobody cares about a lost clutch.
In this case, we shall see if the eggs develop. If there are snails in the tank, there is no future for them. Sometimes, the female(s) eat them, too. Without parental care there is only little hope for them. If they do not disappear, we shall see if they are fertilized or not. If they are not, they will die by funghi within a few days.
Normally, destruction of eggs by funghi happens rather fastly. If they remain like this for several days, it is very likely that the male disappeared very late indeed. You must observe if they change. The normal development of Paro-eggs leads to a very fast change of their form; they become longish, and a tail is to be seen after four or five days. If they remain as round as they are now for several days, they are not fertilized. Then, the male may have disappeared even earlier.
Rafael, you may find this not very amusing, I understand. But you wrote an interesting chapter of the observations of unusual behaviour. It might be nice if you could reveal the male’s fate. Are you sure that it’s corpse is not to be found behind the tank?
that really looks like eggs. I have not tried to watch Paros eggs under the microscope yet. The only single fact I hate about all the labyrinth fish is exactly this. The eggs are white from the start and you can not see trough it. With most eggs of other species, we could tell without any problems if they are fertilized. But from what I see on the pics, I am unable to tell if the thick layer around the egg is just a chorion and not enough light or if it is perivitelline space, but you should be able to see if there are some blastomers and space filled with perivitelline fluid, more space around and close to blastomers first. I would expect the fluid to be clear, never seen it look otherwise. Could you check after couple hours how they look again? That could be very interesting for your work and for us too. We should be able to gather some data on the egg developement in order to check if things are going right. I agree with Peter, even with no males in the tank, females that have good times and produce plenty of eggs may relase those on their own, I have been told the same with Bettas couple times already and other fish too.
hi everybody,
When I found the eggs, they were probably about 6-8 hours old. This was the time when I took the first microscope-pictures. Now, I guess they are over 12 hours old and there should, as deepin peat mentions, be visible blastomers to be found. I was lookign for the eggs but only found that there were about 4 or 5 of them left. I think I can definitely tell now that they have not been fertilised since I could not any of the mentioned charateristics a fertilized egg should have. I comared with older pictures of fertilized Betta coccina eggs I had taken about half a year ago. There, after 10 hours, the blastomer are clearly visible. (The first picture is a B. coccina egg, the blastomers – the first cells of the growing embryo – is the greyish structure around the yolk on the left bottom part) The other pictures I added aer the ones I just took of two of the eggs. Maybe, somebody sees more than I do but I am quite sure there is nothing. Besides this, the fluid around the yolk looks like an emmulsion, not at all clear…
So there is probably no male…Enough of the embryology (a highly interesting subject by the way)…
The behaviour of the two fishes is still rather strange. One (the bigger, a bit larger fish) did some kind of a cave-tour when I came in this evening. She swum in and out of the caves, quickly followed by the second girl. I am really sure that these two must be girls since they both have almost no filament, no blue dots on the side and their caudal fin is of almost no color. I would be really surprised if one of them prooved to be male. Somehow, this larger fish was also really interested in the place where the eggs lay. As mentioned above, most of the eggs have already disappeared. I could, however, not find a nest in one of the three caves (that are all placed in a way that I can easily check them…) I tend to think that one of the females must have lain the eggs. Maybe because of the big waterchange or for another unidentified reason. The two do not show aggressions, They seem to be “playing”. On the two last pictures, you can see the cave-hopper…Hi Rafael,
seems to me like they are looking if there is somewhere in a cave a male waiting for them … They seem to be very eager to make babies …
😉I think there are some good explanations here as to what could have happened, – and perhaps it is true that theres no male in there, – and it happened for some other reason.
But just one thought which I had is also, that if there were indeed another male in the tank, – the second male would likely be a lot more subdued because the other one was dominant.
I do not always find linkei to be that easy. As a matter of fact, just 5 minuttes ago I checked a tank in which I had one grown male with a grown up fry which I was certain was a female. Well, its not :whistle: … I just realized that a moment ago, its a young maleWell 🙂 .. but it is probably two females in your tank as you say 😉
Your study of the eggs are amazing, very interesting
Hi Helene,
that may be right when the linkei male is still rather young, perhaps even if it is subdominant.
But I searched for Rafael an older one, with nice blue colors, the First time.
Now I see one male in my tank which is rather dark colored, I guess, very dominant and ready to court. I will try to find him to get him out of the tank for Rafael next weekend…Hi Dorothee,
This would be extremely nice of you I am really sure that these left two are females and I can’t imagine the me being still alive. Even I case I did not look properly enough and the new male might get into trouble, I still got the second tank which I could set up to keep the two apart from each other out of trouble…
@ Helene: I will try to produce a picture-study of the egg and fry developpment when the paros are spawning and the eggs are fertized…
I think I will post these pictures here…
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