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In a best case scenario, I like Mike Wise’s 1’x1’ square for each fish given proper structure and cover. With that said, some males can be jerks and claim huge areas as “their” territory. In the case of the latter, it can get messy fast
If the explanation in CA 1 is reasonably correct…”the soft-rayed section of the dorsal fin is enlarged and pointed in males, but usually rounded or only minimally pointed in females”…I’d wager both fish are male.
Tank is quite cold for breeding in my opinion. At 23/24* she probably loses interest before the eggs are even close to hatching. Raise temp to 26*.
Do we know anything else about the water? KH/GH/TDS? While borellii are usually pretty flexible when it comes to water, if it’s obscenely hard, it...
When trying to spawn the “hard ones”, I’ve always tried to follow the advice of my friends from SA. pH tics up, temp tics down. .5 movement upward in the pH, and 5*f downward movement on the temp. While a big rainstorm can move the temp from the low 80’s to the high 60’s pretty quickly, I’ve...
Seems a bit optimistic to me. No disrespect, but I’ve not seen a tank complex enough to house multiple pair/harem hierarchies in any of your pictures. I love Mike Wise’s best case/ general rule of thumb more than anyone, but in my experience, you need 25% of the tank volume dedicated to hard...
Sorry to hijack…
Mike, could you explain what makes this female “rather poor”? Compared to many of the cacatuoides I see, I think she looks rather nice. Good fins, complete lateral band, good shape. I’d have a hard time calling this fish a cull…what am I missing?
No clue as to how pliable the bimaculata eggs are as far as water chemistry. IME, about the only thing that will hurt viable eggs is quick/drastic changes in water temp. Messing with the pH (moving lower) and conductivity (higher or lower) has no meaningful effect.
Spawning WC altums is hard. It took me 300 WC imports to get just two pairs of WC fish that would spawn. I was offered some advice near the beginning of my altum spawn quest. If you want to spawn altums, start with F1/CB stock, with no fear to fight they are very easy to spawn.
As a general rule of thumb, that ^^^^ is probably the best option. Let the little earth eaters eat earth uninterrupted in a little tank.
Not that I don’t get what your thinking. Been there, done that. The good news is that blind coryadoras really don’t behave that much different than those with...
With only 5 fish, the math just isn’t really on your side. Most WC altum are just too scared to spawn in captivity. Out of 100 adults, you may be lucky enough to get 1 female that will be brave enough to spawn.