Ivanacara bimaculata eggs

[anewbie]

Possibly too late???

Maybe but not sure why they never had an interest.

 

[Mike Wise]

I've had 4 year old apistos produce fry. Yes, I was very surprised. I have a 3 year old 'pair' of A. wolli right now and I think they are in the mood if not got eggs/fry. This is one reason that I regularly feed live bbs regularly. You never know.

 

[illumnae]

Your collection sounds great.

Thank you, it's really hard to get wildcaught dwarf cichlids here in Singapore due to the small population and market size making importers not want to bring them in. I usually make an annual trip to Hong Kong to get whatever is available at the time I'm there (a small fraction of what they get throughout the year - I just missed out on some beauties that arrived today but I'm only going next month), and whatever I can convince an importer friend to bring in from Glaser. The Glaser route is extremely iffy as my friend orders them in pairs (MOQ 3 pairs) but Glaser usually is wrong in gender identification, or just extremely unreliable in shipping out what is ordered. It's pretty painstaking building up a nice collection.

 

[illumnae]

The last spawn got eaten again, and another pair laid a new batch of eggs last night. My wife now wants me to separate the eggs from the parents and artificially hatch them in another tank. Can anyone guide me on how to do this? I'm planning on setting up a new bare bottom tank that I usually use for quarantine, fill it with water from the parents' tank and dose methylene blue so that the eggs won't fungus. I have sponge filters, but I'm thinking of placing an air stone with a much gentler flow near the mouth of the pot too so that there is gentle water flow nearer the eggs than from the sponge filter, which will be mounted on the tank wall. Can I move them now, or should I wait till day 2-3 to do it? Anything else I need to do?

 

[KenL]

Unless you have a commercial need to raise fry for sale, I would allow the female to keep trying. Have you tried removing the male after spawning? Is there anything you could do to change the tank layout to see if that makes a difference?
Good luck.

 

[Mike Wise]

I agree with KenL. Keep trying with parents or female alone. If still unsuccessful - and the eggs appear fertile - then treat them like angelfish eggs when artificially hatching. My guess right now is that there is something in or around the tank that disturbs the fish.

 

[illumnae]

Thank you for your advice. It's just frustrating that all 3 breeding pairs ate their eggs on day 4-5 (twice for one pair)

Both parents seem to be guarding the eggs and the male is not harassing the female, so I don't think the male is the issue - trying to catch the male may cause more stress comparatively. The pair are the only 2 fish in the tank, so the only disturbances would be the pair in the adjacent tank seen through the dividing glass and us entering the fish room to hatch/harvest bbs and to feed them. I suspect that entering the room when it is dark may stress them out due to large shadows in the dark, so this time around I will try leaving the room light on 24/7 while keeping the tank lights to their usual schedule.

Will hold off on artificial hatching for now. I've never artificially hatched angelfish either though, so if they still keep eating the eggs is the plan I outlined above correct?

 

[Mike Wise]

It is definitely worth a try. You might even consider covering the sides and front.

 

[rasmusW]

Could you show a few pictures of the tanks?
It might help with some ideas.

Here is a few thoughts that came to mind, some of which you probably already have tried.

How high up in the room are the tanks placed. Maybe they could get stressed if too much is going on.
Light intensity. Maybe dim the light?. It’s natural habitat is shaded forrest streams.
Add more structure to the tank, so not just the spawning site.
Add a few dither fish?

I hope you/they will succeed soon.

-r

 

[illumnae]

Leaving the lights on helped abit but ultimately not good enough as the eggs/wrigglers still got eaten, just a few days later. The tanks are all at about waist/chest height in a dedicated fish room so there's only movement in the room three times a day - once to hatch brine shrimp (I keep 2 hatcheries running), once to harvest the brine shrimp and once to feed them. Less than 10 minutes each time, and never near the tanks except to feed. I've dimmed the lights over the tank by about 30% already. Have not yet tried adding dithers, but I thought they would do more harm than good if the pairs are already bonded? I'll get some pictures soon.

The good news is that the 4th pair has bonded and spawned for the first time. After the previous batch of eggs got eaten, the other 3 pairs have spawned over the past 3 consecutive days. So from 4 pairs there have been 8 spawns (one pair 3x, one pair once and the other 2 pairs 2x). I think this time around I will pull 1-2 of the spawns to try artificially hatching and leave the other 1-2 to try hatching naturally again. They're spawning regularly so no harm trying a batch of artificial hatching since them eating the eggs means that they're lost anyway. I've been watching YouTube videos on how to artificially hatch angelfish eggs so hopefully it works.

 

[illumnae]

Some of the eggs are turning white despite adding methylene blue in accordance with the instructions on the bottle I've added more this morning to get a deeper blue, but haven't dared to add enough to make the water so dark that the eggs are barely visible like some Google results have suggested

 

[anewbie]

Some of the eggs are turning white despite adding methylene blue in accordance with the instructions on the bottle I've added more this morning to get a deeper blue, but haven't dared to add enough to make the water so dark that the eggs are barely visible like some Google results have suggested

White normally means they were not fertilized. Methlene blue won't help with that - mb helps with fungus. fungus is normal but when the female is there she will remove it or move the eggs.

 

[illumnae]

They were normal colored when I moved them to the hatchery tank (24 hours after they were laid), but 2 turned white a few hours after and some more have turned white overnight. I thought that means that they were fungused rather than unfertilized. They were all the same colour as the first photo I posted in this thread asking if they were fertilized and the consensus was that they were. It's currently about 36 hours from when they were laid. The gif below was taken when I just moved them - at that point none of the eggs were white.

This is a picture of what the breeding tanks all look like - the smaller tanks look like this while the larger tanks have double the flowerpots and sponge filters:

 

[anewbie]

When she first lay them they will all be translucent. the ones not feritlize will turn white and then fungus will grow on them (you can see the fungus if you look with a magnifying glass). With the mother she will prefer the fungus by removing the bad eggs or moving the good eggs - it is normal for not all of them to be fertilized. I presume you have a bunch of fertilized ones. When you hatch the eggs without the mother fungus will grow unconstrained on the non-fertilize eggs (it is not clear to me if this is a problem for the fertilize eggs but some people use mb to stop the fungus. I guess a bit depends on how much fungus before the eggs hatch.

 

[illumnae]

OK got it thanks! It's my first time artificially hatching eggs. Usually I just let the female do her thing, but after 5 spawns over 3 pairs all getting eaten, I decided to give it a shot to at least see 1 batch of fry (hopefully). I hope the methylene blue stops the fungus from infecting other eggs

 

[anewbie]

i had a lot of problems getting them to hatch myself. They bred regularly but no frys. I would examine the eggs with magnifying glass and I *think* they were fertilized - but maybe not. In my case she had a favorite spot right next tot he glass on a piece of driftwood. Near the end i was not sure proper fertilization was happening. I did try a lot of different temperatrures from 73 to 80. I have bred most of the other fishes i've owned - the only other one being problematic are the ladisalo which don't seem to want to to pair up; though just recently when i lower the tmep from 78 to 74 the male seemed to join with a female and together they cleared out 1/2 the tank which is a hopeful sign (they are in a 40b).

 

[illumnae]

I think we have similar experiences for both species.

My bimaculata just keep eating their eggs, though in my case I think the eggs are fertilized - they are always in a flowerpot and last 3-5 days without turning white until one day they are just all eaten. By my estimation, it's usually when they hatch into wrigglers that the female gets spooked and eats them. 6 spawns all with the same pattern (the 6th spawn just got eaten overnight, which is day 3-4 for this batch - it's one of the 2 spawns I didn't pull out to artificially hatch).

For my ladislao pair, they also took a couple of months to pair up but they now get along well with each other. The female has been bright yellow for a few weeks already, but unfortunately still hasn't actually laid any eggs. My rositae female was also yellow for ages before finally laying her first eggs so I'm hopeful for the ladislao pair to deliver eventually. My fish room is air conditioned so water temperature is about 22-23 degrees celcius in those tanks.

 

[rasmusW]

My fish room is air conditioned so water temperature is about 22-23 degrees celcius in those tanks.

That sounds a bit low, imo. I had mine at 26 degrees celcius.
After seeing the tank picture, I would definately add some more structure to the tanks. Maybe just a large piece of driftwood to create shelter and some floaters too.
I don’t think it has to be a lot.
Try look at some of “miguelgr7” (forum name, here), tanks on YouTube.

Here is his link.

-r

 

[KenL]

I wonder if these egg eaters were themselves artificially raised?

 

[illumnae]

That sounds a bit low, imo. I had mine at 26 degrees celcius.
After seeing the tank picture, I would definately add some more structure to the tanks. Maybe just a large piece of driftwood to create shelter and some floaters too.
I don’t think it has to be a lot.
Try look at some of “miguelgr7” (forum name, here), tanks on YouTube.

Here is his link.

-r

Being in a tropical country mosquitoes (and dengue fever) are a concern, and my neighbour just behind my fish room doesn't properly maintain his backyard, leading to lots of mosquitoes breeding there. I have to keep the windows shut and hence air conditioning is on 24/7 due to the humidity. The air conditioner is set at 25 degrees celcius but the water tends to settle slightly lower. I don't really want to run a heater in each tank on the rack.

The initial vision for the tank is that each upright flowerpot (which has soil in it) would have hardy plants growing out of them to provide more vertical cover and sight breakage. Unfortunately a few months down the road the plants have instead mostly died out. I will, when I have the time, remove all the upright pots (the sideways pots acting as caves will remain) and instead put a piece of blocky wood into each tank. Does this wood available at an lfs here look ok? I'm intending to get the S and SM sizes, 1-2 pieces per tank.

ANS Old Black Driftwood (Various size)S (WHITE LABEL) (10-20cm)

Natural driftwood that adds unique expression to any tank aquascape. Each OBD comes with different shapes and texture that helps to recreate natural layout. It is popular to be use in planted layout or even river layout. ANS Old Black Driftwood (XS) (300g/pkt) ANS Old Black Driftwood XS - Extra...

eastoceansg.com

The downside to this is that it makes catching fish/fry out of each tank harder.

Another update - artificial hatching attempt is a failure. Most of the eggs have turned white/fungused by day 3. Even shorter lifespan than leaving them with the parents.