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When I set up the accommodation for my P. opallios, I built some caves out of coal and aquarium goo and placed them on both sides of the tank’s interior and at various levels. On the outside of the tank I gooed bits of foam that had ‘windows’ cut out of them. The idea was that the fish would choose a cave each (actually there are not enough caves to go round!) and I could inspect them from time to time by temporarily removing the ‘windows’. Here’s a couple of piccies that will better explain what I’m trying to say.
Cave ‘closed’ :
Cave ‘open’ :
This arrangement has worked very well. One fish in particular doesn’t like being inspected and scoots out of her cave to hang around the entrance until the window shuts again ; other than that, they have quietly resigned themselves to being stared at every so often!
My plan, once they settled and (more to the point!) once I’d proved to myself that I could keep them healthy, was/is to remove a pair to accommodation where they might be encouraged to breed. The reason that I haven’t done that, so far, is that I can’t find a location in the house that is both convenient and has access to the necessary electricity outlets.
A few minutes ago I was musing on this problem and opened a ‘window’ just to say “hello” to one of them. It was the cave occupied by the diffident fish and, as expected, she grumpily exited the cave. I was about to close the window when I saw what I took to be a small Planaria worm just below her. Zeroing in for a closer look, I was wondering how on earth it might have got in there and, having done so, how it had managed not to get eaten. Then I saw it had tiny fins …
I’m very excited! It’s too tiny to photograph (even if I were capable of doing so) and I’m not yet sure if there are more fry in the tank. If I find any more I’ll return and report. I’d best get a fresh batch of Artemia going! In the meantime I’ll give it (or, hopefully, ‘them’) a dollop of green water.
Hi Vale, congrats with the ‘larvae’ 🙂 .. I am sure there will be more, there usually is.
If they have gotten so big that you can actually spot them they will probably be big enough for artemia. I dont anymore feed my tanks with smaller food and I still have a lot of fry growing up, so I think they are able to take artemia quite quickly.
Your cave-system looks interesting, I am not sure I completely understand 🙂 but if it works its good.Perhaps this piccie of a newly-constructed cave will help?
I then superglued moss to them.
Incidentally, I’ve seen another fry, much bigger then the one I spotted earlier – so it seems possible that there have been two clutches of eggs laid. I haven’t been able to get a decent photo of it (it’s genetically programmed to be aware of the distance it must be from a camera in order not to be photographed!)but this is the best I can do for the moment :
When I put in a second helping of green water, some mosquito larvae were included. I watched as this fry considered one for a long time. Given the relative sizes of fish and prey, I thought there’d be no way that the former could fit the latter in its mouth. Wrong!
Yes, that makes it more clear to me 🙂 .. looks pretty good.
So there were more than one, – now two. Then theres probably more than two .. theres always more than the ones you have spotted. :blink:
I have seen small fry go for the mosquitoes too, – sometimes the larvaes runs off with the fry 🙂 ..
Thats were really small mosquito larvaes are really good.I think to challenge the genetic programming of your fry you need a flash for the camera. That does wonders sometimes. But I know, its not at all easy.
Yesterday I thought I’d take a pair of opallios out of their current accommodation and give them a room of their own. The most suitable place was what was my shrimp tank, so I evicted all the shrimp into a third tank and did a thorough Spring clean of that ex-shrimp tank. The whole process required logistical ingenuity ; it took several hours and there were containers full of water everywhere!
Before moving any Paros, it was necessary to take everything out of the tank ; and before doing that I had to make sure that no fish were lurking in the caves [you may like to refer up-thread to make sense of this!] and prevent them going back in before the water-level dropped. To do this, the rectangle of foam that blocks each window outside the tank is removed and transferred inside the tank, blocking the entrances to the caves. So far so good.
I found a Paros fry that I didn’t know I had ; and managed to transfer two adults (one’s definitely a male and I hope the other is female) to their new accommodation.
After a lot of faffing I was at last ready to reconstruct the main Paros tank. I began removing the foam rectangles from the caves … and was astonished to find a load of eggs adhering to one of them (it was the one picture in Reply #2415, in fact). A quick glance in the cave told me that I hadn’t been very attentive when blocking the cave earlier : there was a male in there – and he must have been trapped in there for about four hours!
I couldn’t immediately think of a way of re-introducing the twenty (or so) eggs to the cave, so I scattered them in a clump of moss in the ex-shrimp tank. They were extremely sticky, but I got them all off the foam eventually. I don’t know what the likelihood is that they’ll hatch? Apart from the pair of adult Paros, the only creatures I deliberately put into that tank are a few cherry shrimps and a small gang of Asellus aquaticus ; I’m sure the Asellus won’t touch them, but I guess the shrimp may find them too hard to resist. I guess I’ll find out in due course!
Back at the main Paros tank, I inspected the cave more closely. There are still around twenty eggs stuck to the roof. During the process of removing everything from the tank, hovering and then doing a partial water-change, the water-level had dropped such that it had been a millimetre or two below the eggs : they wouldn’t have dried out as such, but they would have been exposed to air for at least some of the time. The male is still in there guarding them. That may be a sign that all is still well ; or it may be a sign that he is completely stupid. I guess I’ll find that out in dies course as well!
A couple of bad piccies. The first shows a bit of the male in the cave (before the camera flash made him scarper!).
The second is a fish’s-eye view of the cave entrance, looking out into the tank.
Although I can see the remaining eggs, I’m afraid I can’t get a photograph of them at the moment.
Update …
At least two of those eggs that were carried downstairs, stuck on a piece of foam, have hatched!
(I considered adding this to Jacob’s ‘opallios breeding’ thread, but in the end didn’t. I don’t think it deserves its own thread, so I’m tacking it onto one of my old ones! Please move if necessary)
A while ago I moved a pair of opallios into a 15-litre compartment in a row of similar tanks that share the same water. It had been an unusually long while since I last saw either, so at this week’s water-change I thought I’d have a hunt for them.
I began removing wood, moss etc. starting at the front of the compartment. Within a few seconds the female appeared, shocked and disillusioned from underneath a pile of leaf-litter. I continued the search for the male …
Lifting up a bamboo cave I came across what I presume to be a bubblenest (pictured here) :
I say “presume to be” because, although previously I’ve had several spawnings of opallios, I have never noticed a bubblenest before : eggs were ‘bare’ and simply stuck onto the roof of a coal cave.
Was I therefore previously unobservant ; or do opallios in fact sometimes use bubblenests and sometimes not? I can’t see any eggs in this bubblenest, incidentally. Having taken the photo, I immediately put everything back as close as I could to where it was before. Even so, I assume that I’ve ruined any potential of this particular nest.
The question that follows on from this is : would I be justified in resuming the search for the male in due course, or can I take it that the presence of a bubblenest is sufficient evidence that he’s lurking there somewhere?! (EDIT : it’s OK – when I returned downstairs there he was, stationed at the front of the tank wondering what on earth had happened!).
In Horst Linke’s book Labyrinth Fish World the species is described as a nest builder. So, that conforms with what you have discovered.
It always depends on the quality of water, soft water, many bubbles, the harder blow the water the less. In addition, it also depends always a bit from the males from some build foam nests others not, but the two go and have the eggs rather no effect, only with “hard water” seem the eggs not good to stick to the ceiling and fall frequently down , 🙂
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