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.. it’s much more about getting them to keep the eggs.
[video width=400 height=225 type=youtube]1ROV0RxHfGo[/video]
I’ve attached some images of the breeding cave. I had the female in the tank for some days, when I introduced the male on ‘day 0’. The couple spawned 5 times in 35 days. Every time the eggs disappeared. Is there a risk of exhaustion? How many times do they usually spawn? Once a year during dry season?
Tank setup: 30 by 30 cm tank with 12-15cm blackwater. One coconut cave, one spawning cave, some oak leafs and alder cones. Small air filter. 24-25°C water temperature, pH 5, 0°dH. Some floating Ceratopteris thalictroides to break water movement on the surface.
The female usually hides inside the coconut. Only between the spawning attempts, i.e. in the pictures where you can’t see the male, the male claims the coconut cave and the female hides behind the filter or under an oak leaf.
Any comments are welcome.
Am I right that the eggs usually fall down from the nest during the second or third day? If so, how exactly you prepare the water and what do you feed your breeders. It seems like the conditions are ok for fertilization but not for further developement. Any chance that your readings (for example the so called “carbonate hardness”) could be wrong?
Yes, they fall down after a day or two.
I’m using RO water treated with peat, oak leaves and alder cones. So zero hardness there. But I fear that I might have a too heavy bacterial or fungi load. I’ll remove any litter soon and see what happens.
I feed with live white and red mosquito larvae. Hopefully I’ll have some black mosquito larvae soon in a bucket of water outside.
Using RO water does not necessarily have to mean zero hardness. That is why I was asking. Your RO is probably removing ions with overall efficacy around +-95% ( some membranes are a little better or worse + it depends on the pressure, temperature and so on) So dependent on the input, one may be getting RO water with 0,3° of alkalinity for example, which may not be measurable by simple DGH drop test, but may be suffiecient to harm the eggs. Of course, if you have some mixbed patron at the end of the system, or if you drop the water over bigger amount of peat, than it should remove the residual hardness. If there is any, lowering the pH even more could help too, there is usually a relation between these factors, so the higher the hardness and/or alkalinity, the lower pH may be needed for the eggs to develope. Of course there is some range of conditions where this is applicable.
I would worry about the litter at the latest. I would check the water first to be sure.
Agreed, when breeding fish , not just Paros, these type of problems mostly come from the water not being quite right.
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