Seasonality in spawning of Parosphromenus linkei, some thoughts

[Shane Essary]

Hello all,

I picked up a group of linkei and of Betta sp. api api last May. I diligently set-up a tank for each species in what I think would be recognized as normal: water RO (~12ppm hardness), pH lowered to around 3.5-4 using phosphoric acid. I also setup the tank initially for killifish, plant spawners, using the Midwest method of filling the the tank mostly with long fiber sphagnum peat moss. and I set up some caves using some glass yogurt containers (from the Oui! brand), but I never found the fish using them.

I quickly found fry from both species, although the Parosphromenus I only ever found the one. Anyway, after distributing the fish out I quickly lost sight of all the fish and those tanks have been essentially abandoned for the past year. I still fed regularly and would occasionally see a betta here and there, but the Paros, I assumed I had lost all but a single one. Until this weekend.

I long ago stopped using RO water and fussing with pH. Heck, I’ve reduced water changes to maybe once a month. My tap water is around 200+ppm and pH around 7.0. The linkei tank has 2 female killies swimming around now. And yet, I found a linkei juvenile in the tank. Looking closer, I found another about half its size and then another, half again. Looks like the progeny from 3 different spawns given the growth rate, and all recently. It’s been a year since I found the last ones, which leads me to believe that even if you keep them in crappy water, if they’re still happy that perhaps May-July is when they’re more than willing to spawn considering I haven’t found any fry outside of these times. I just checked my betta tank, whose primary occupants have gone missing, and I just found an 1″ long juvenile api api in there, too.

Just some food for thought

EDIT: here’s a video of a couple of the fry I took earlier today: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gspEBVd-qz8

[helene schoubye]

Just a Quick remark, which is that yes, this will be not unlikely to happen with linkei, which is why we often recommend linkei to beginners, they are the least delikate of all species.
You will most likely not find the same with many of the other species.
But, in general, theres no reason also to keep paros in the lowest pH range, they do tolerate higher levels. But then again, it is not helpful for their general wellbeing to be kept in less optimal conditions, and normally a spawn of linkei Can be very productive, not just a couple of frys.
So, just to say, yes, it is quite possible with in particular linkei, but not really recommendable ?
Whether this is sseasonal or not, I dont know, it could also just be that spawning related ro a waterchange you did
And a ps, I should Warn you, that there are really few people using the Forum these days, people use the facebookgroup a lot more, ?, So if you find it a bit quiet here, thats why..

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