1st D. maculatus spawn

[Gillie]

I came home to this pleasant surprise

 

[Melanochromis]

Very nice. Congrats!
Your male looks exactly like the one I had last year. I got a new male after he died but that one is not as pretty.

 

[Gillie]

Very nice. Congrats!
Your male looks exactly like the one I had last year. I got a new male after he died but that one is not as pretty.

Thanks, he is nice. When I got them I was expecting to get a smaller one, instead they had giant 3" males.

 

[magpie]

I love dicrossus maculatus! I'd love to see some more photos of your pair. Do you keep anything else in there with them?

Your tank looks lush, as well.

 

[Gillie]

I love dicrossus maculatus! I'd love to see some more photos of your pair. Do you keep anything else in there with them?

Your tank looks lush, as well.

Thanks, the tank is quite heavily planted especially with the watersprite that has recently exploded. I'll try to get a few more photos up soon.

Now for a little update, the eggs and female are no longer on the leaf and I only se her for a split second as she comes out to grab a few daphnia only to disappear again. So one of two things have happened, the eggs hatched and she managed to find an open space on the substrate or she ate them and is hiding from the male, but only time will tell.

 

[vman]

Congrats on the spawn ! I just bought 6 D. maculatus Santarem F1 in Jan of this year . Lost 1 but have 5 healthy fish 2 males & 3 females .

 

[wethumbs]

Vman where did you get the F1 D. mac from?

Female disappearing with the eggs is not a bad thing. My females would move the wigglers several times before they are free swimmers, sometime more than once a day. Look at how the male behaves to give you clues on what's going on. If he is moving all over the tank then the female lost the spawn. However, if he spends most of the time at certain spot and rarely moves from it, the female is keeping him away from the wigglers and he knows it.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,
I acquired 4 juvenile D. maculatus from "Rare Aquatics" in the UK in 2011, and the pair I've kept have just spawned. The eggs are on the underside of an Anubias leaf, in a position where I can't really focus on them, but they look promising at present. The females is very attentive, she has a red anal fin and bright yellow ventrals, with a black edge, very similar in colour to a female Apistogramma's ventral fins.

I've very rarely seen either of them, but at present the male is excluded from "the jungle" and I've managed to get a photo of him. The yellow dots are Ostracods, although he was mainly having a go at the Daphnia, that I had fed with them. They have been the most unproblematic fish to feed, and have eaten any food (including flake etc) that I've fed. This is the female, her eggs are on a leaf behind her.

and this is the male.

cheers Darrel

 

[Gwendal]

A nice tank and nice fish.





1 saludo

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,
I just thought I'd give an up date, and the answer is that I'm still not sure whether I have any fry. The eggs were definitely fertile and I assume I got free swimming fry, mainly because the female has defended different areas of the tank.

Subsequently I've been away for a 10 days. The female is still behaving and coloured like she is protecting fry, but even after 3 weeks I still haven't seen any.

cheers Darrel

 

[Melanochromis]

Hi all,
I just thought I'd give an up date, and the answer is that I'm still not sure whether I have any fry. The eggs were definitely fertile and I assume I got free swimming fry, mainly because the female has defended different areas of the tank.

Subsequently I've been away for a 10 days. The female is still behaving and coloured like she is protecting fry, but even after 3 weeks I still haven't seen any.

cheers Darrel

From my experience, I found that some maculatus females retain breeding colors and act as if they're guarding something even after the eggs are gone. I tried to look for fry too but they weren't just there. I think if it's several days after hatching and you don't find fry, then they don't probably exist. But if it's just 1-2 day after hatching time, then it's possible that the female moved the not-yet-swimming fry to some pit somewhere nearby.

On a side note, I find it much easier to artificially raise the fry. No worries at all. Maculatus fry are very cute and easy to raise because they aren't picky eaters like those Apistos! Much easier to wean them to prepared foods.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

From my experience, I found that some maculatus females retain breeding colors and act as if they're guarding something even after the eggs are gone. I tried to look for fry too but they weren't just there. I think if it's several days after hatching and you don't find fry, then they don't probably exist.

That would make perfect sense. I'll try softening the water a bit more whilst I've got plenty of live food available, and hopefully they will have another go.

Maculatus fry are very cute and easy to raise because they aren't picky eaters like those Apistos! Much easier to wean them to prepared foods.

This was certainly true of the adults, they eat absolutely everything.

cheers Darrel

 

[gerald]

True, but they can be bloat-prone, so don't let their non-pickiness lull you into complacency with one or two easy foods. Feed Dicrossus a diverse diet including cooked veggies to avoid fatty liver/kidney degeneration and bloat, especially as they get older.

This was certainly true of the adults, they eat absolutely everything.
cheers Darrel

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,
Just to resuscitate this thread, they've bred again, so I'll more post if I get any fry.

Feed Dicrossus a diverse diet including cooked veggies to avoid fatty liver/kidney degeneration and bloat, especially as they get older.

Since Gerald wrote this I've noticed them having a go at the red pepper and cucumber (for the Otocinclus). They were both looking a bit tubby, I've been feeding really heavily with mosquito larvae, along with Daphnia, Grindal worms etc so hopefully that was just "condition" rather than a lot of fat.

cheers Darrel

 

[Gwendal]

Really nice pair.

Good job!







1 saludo

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,
They are doing really well, but still no fry. The female has evicted the male from "the jungle" again, so I live in hope. It did allow me to get a slightly better photo, but it really doesn't do him justice.

His display is quite interesting, I can't remember what the male D. filamentosus did, but he puts all his fins out, then only poses very briefly, before he flashes the fins up and down really quickly (almost like a male Thread-fin Rainbow) in front of the female.

She doesn't tend to come out into the open very much, so I just get glimpses of him displaying to her between the plants.

cheers Darrel

 

[Gwendal]

Really nice colors!





1 saludo

 

[halmiris]

Very nice male. I love this little fish.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,
Came to work this morning to find that the female had died, so another attempt at Dicrossus has ended with no fry. I'm really disappointed, as I had high hopes for them after they spawned, and the male has developed into a real stunner.

On the plus side whilst I was fishing her out (she looked in good condition other than being deceased) I found that I had some juvenile Corydoras hastatus in the tank, which was a surprise. They were in a strange place, (I disturbed one sub-adult and 2 older fry), high up in the root zone of the Hygrophila thicket right in amongst the roots of the floaters and Anubias, and only a couple of inches below the surface.

So if any-one either has any female or sub-adult D. maculatus that I could buy, or could add an adult male to their breeding stock, please PM me. I'm in Bath in the UK.

cheers Darrel

 

[raymond82]

That's unfortunate about the D. maculatus dying, hopefully you'll find a new female. There's a shop here in Holland that now has a lot of WC D. maculatus but that's not much help for you I guess...

On the other hand, having C. hastatus fry is very nice! Sounds like you didn't know you had fry, I would love to have tanks big enough (and planted enough) for me to have nice surprises like this every once in a while.