Breeding Dicrossus foirni

[ryansmith83]

I've posted before about my F1 group of fish but I think I finally managed to obtain (*fingers crossed*) two females to go with the eight males I have. I've had subdominant males that I thought were females who then sprouted into males almost overnight, so hopefully that isn't the case again.

At any rate, these fish are set up in a 55 gallon and are very feisty and healthy. The males are about 2.5" and have awesome colors. They are voracious eaters and do not seem picky or difficult in their day to day husbandry. The challenge will be spawning them.

My fish are growing out in water with a high pH (7.6 or so), gH 5, kH 7. The person I bought these fish from said he spawned his wild pair at pH 5. Is there a chance they will spawn in slightly higher pH (6 - 6.5) or will I have to drop it all the way down into the 5's? Has anyone actually bred them here, or read reports of breedings?

Another question concerns fry sex ratio. From what I gather, a huge majority of the fry from this breeder were male. I contacted several of the buyers who got Dicrossus from the same spawn as mine, hoping to find spare females, but was told by nearly all of them that their groups were all male or that they only had one female. Is this because of the low pH they were bred in? If so, what is the best way to combat that? I haven't really bred many fish where pH played a role in sex determination, so this area is new to me.

The fish are maybe 9 - 10 months old so I'm thinking they should be spawning age now. I just need to get the water right.

Any tips or suggestions would be appreciated!

 

[Mike Wise]

I haven't kept D. foirni since 1983, but everything I've read says that it needs very acid (< pH 5.8) and extremely soft water (<2° dGH & KH) to successfully reproduce. They are a true blackwater species afterall. I doubt that you'll be successful without these conditions. No one has studied sex ratios in Dicrossus species, so it's hard to say why your breeder had such a skewed sex ratio. They could be like apistos, where the temperature is a dominant influence.

 

[garcia]

Ryan,
Glad to hear you found some females ...Good Luck with these cool Dicrossus ...

Ralph

 

[ryansmith83]

Thanks, Ralph. Fingers crossed!

I'm thinking of testing the TDS/pH of rain water and going from there. We're currently getting a ton of it in Florida and it'd be cheaper and more readily available than going the RO/DI route. Although, I know that's the route I'll probably have to end up going.

Blackwater is a new thing for me. I've kept and bred a lot of SA cichlids but none that have required me to alter my water much. I've lucked out and gotten most species to spawn just fine in my tap. I'm definitely willing to go the extra mile for these guys, though. I'd really love to see them become more available. They're really a breathtaking little fish.

 

[gerald]

Assuming you get fry, once they are free-swimming you could try lowering the temp to 72-75 range. Lower temps generally favors females in Apistos, and temp seems to have a stronger effect than pH in Apistos (Romer & Beisenherz, 1996) . Our resident wetthumbs found a similar temperature effect trend with Pelvicachromis. See link to his recent article here:
http://www.apistogramma.com/forum/index.php?threads/p-taeniatus-temperatures.14828/#post-78139

Since we dont know if Dicrossus might react the opposite way, you might try splitting the fry into two tanks and raise half at low temp (72-76) and half at high temp (78-84). Of course the warm group will probably LOOK like you're getting more males at first, since they'll be growing faster and showing sexual characteristics sooner.

 

[ryansmith83]

The "female's" anal fin started showing red today. I really, really hope this is not another subdominant male starting to color up. I initially thought I had two females out of my original group but they were late-blooming males. Here's hoping the pelvic fins turn red soon and she confirms she's a she.

The gH/kH are 0 according to the test kits (I've been doing gradual w/c with pure RO) and the pH is still hovering in the mid 6's. I have a bunch of Indian almond leaves in there so I'm assuming it should start to drop without any measurable kH.

 

[grayfox55]

I just bought 6 D. Fiorni and they are old enough to breed but I don't see any females yet...some of them are smaller but haven't noticed anyone showing red anal fin. Anyway... was wondering if you ever got your group to spawn?