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Copella callolepis (sensu Zarske)

dw1305

Well-Known Member
5 Year Member
Messages
2,755
Location
Wiltshire UK
Hi all,
I've obtained five <"Copella callolepis"> .

I bought them as "Splash Tetra", although the vendor knew that they were another species of Copella, just not which one. We both thought they might be C. callolepis, and a look at TomC's web-site proved that is what they are.

I've only had them for a couple of weeks, but they've settled in very well and coloured up. I'm hoping they are going to spawn. I'll get a picture of them and keep you informed on how they are getting on.

I assume they are a black-water fish, mainly because they have tried eating pretty much everything including dried food, and even having a go at the Asellus, which are almost as big as them.

cheers Darrel
 

dw1305

Well-Known Member
5 Year Member
Messages
2,755
Location
Wiltshire UK
Hi all,
They must read the forum, when I got home they had already started spawning. Three of the fish were involved, and they showed a different colour pattern, with no lateral band, just a pale cream back-ground with very prominent contrasting dark dots. The male swam round rapidly and frequently entered a saucer shaped dead Beech (Fagus sylvatica) leaf, that was caught in the floating plants at the surface, and had less than 1cm of water on top of it. Eventually both the other fish joined him (the tank lights were on and I could see there shadows from underneath), at one point all three were side by side on the leaf.

The two fish, that weren't involved, carried on foraging and retained a darker colour with lateral band.

This morning there were quite a lot of clear eggs (probably about 50) adhering to the leaf, and a couple of white ones (presumably unfertilised) loose in the water on the leaf. All the fish seemed to be behaving normally so I've left the eggs on their leaf in the tank and I'll try and get some photos this evening.

cheers Darrel
 

rasmusW

Well-Known Member
5 Year Member
Messages
455
congrats darrel!

mine used the same leaf everytime aswell. that was also approximately 1cm. below water surface. though i wasn't as lucky as you. i didn't see any eggs.. -or maybe i just didn't know what to look for.
is it possible to grab a picture of the eggs? -is it a small clutch of eggs or are they scattered all over the leaf?
i hope to get some more of either callolepis or nattereri (i probably prefer nattereri), since i af a few lasting ones from earlier.

looking forward to see next update.

-r
 

dw1305

Well-Known Member
5 Year Member
Messages
2,755
Location
Wiltshire UK
Hi all,
congrats darrel!

mine used the same leaf everytime aswell. that was also approximately 1cm. below water surface. though i wasn't as lucky as you. i didn't see any eggs.. -or maybe i just didn't know what to look for.
is it possible to grab a picture of the eggs? -is it a small clutch of eggs or are they scattered all over the leaf?
i hope to get some more of either callolepis or nattereri (i probably prefer nattereri), since i af a few lasting ones from earlier.

looking forward to see next update.-r
The leaf had sunk deeper into the tank and all the eggs were gone when I came home.

The eggs were all over the leaf (it is quite a small leaf), and they were smaller than those of C. arnoldi, but these are smaller fish.

They were transparent and you couldn't see them unless you lifted the leaf out. If there hadn't been a couple of white (presumably infertile) ones on the leaf, I probably would have assumed that there weren't any eggs.

cheers Darrel
 

rasmusW

Well-Known Member
5 Year Member
Messages
455
Hi!!

As i was writing another post here, i spotted my only two remaining callolepis, spawn on a leaf near the surface. Ofcause i checked for eggs as soon as they where done, but sadly i couldn’t see any.
But i’m glad to see they are in the mood again, because they have been laying low for a while.

-r
 

Chromedome

Member
5 Year Member
Messages
98
I had this species back about 1983-84, and have been trying to find them again ever since. At the time they were (mis)identified as Copella nattereri. I only managed to get one pair, but they did spawn in a very similar manner to that described above. My pair, however, had a floating leaf of Echinodorus cordifolius that they used. There was a shallow puddle of water on top of the leaf, which had one edge submerged. They slid up onto the leaf side by side, somehow staying under the water tension. I took photos, but when the slides finally came back, they were very bad. I did siphon some eggs off the leaf and attempted hatching in isolation. The fry were the smallest things I'd ever seen. At the time I was still relatively inexperienced, and was unable to find a food for them.

Just to verify, this is a photo of the male:
Copella callolepis male.jpg
 

rasmusW

Well-Known Member
5 Year Member
Messages
455
Hi chromedome!

Now, i don’t know where in the world you are, but i you are able to order fish from ruinemanns in netherland, you can get hold of some copella callolepis. I recently saw them on their site.
I got my callolepis by a mistake, because they where labelled as natterneri. Beautiful fish non the less.
Now i got one natterneri and two callolepis.

-r
 

dw1305

Well-Known Member
5 Year Member
Messages
2,755
Location
Wiltshire UK
Hi all,
Hi chromedome!

Now, i don’t know where in the world you are, but i you are able to order fish from ruinemanns in netherland, you can get hold of some copella callolepis. I recently saw them on their site.
I got my callolepis by a mistake, because they where labelled as natterneri. Beautiful fish non the less.
Now i got one natterneri and two callolepis.

-r
The nomenclature for these Copella spp. is fairly confused. There is a recent paper that tries to sort it all out, but some of the issues are really deep-seated because the holotype specimen etc. is missing.

Paper is Marinho & Menezes(2017) "Taxonomic review of Copella (Characiformes: Lebiasinidae) with an identification key for the species" and that calls this fish Copella nattereri "sensu Marinho" , which was why I put C. callolepis "sensu Zarske" in the original title.

I got the <"information and scientific references"> from @Tom C.

cheers Darrel
 

rasmusW

Well-Known Member
5 Year Member
Messages
455
Thanks darrel!

That’ll be my goodnight read.
This evening my callolepis pair is at it again.
I came home from “den blå planet” (Danmarks national aquarium) an hour or so ago, and saw them. They have been swimming up and Down from the same leaf since.
Could those little white dots here be eggs?
On the other picture you can see them as silhouettes on the leaf in the middle.

-rAB6BB690-A927-4501-A8FC-D59FB81A5B62.jpegE0F5A007-4BD4-4690-BA41-03F7059AEC29.jpeg
 

dw1305

Well-Known Member
5 Year Member
Messages
2,755
Location
Wiltshire UK
Hi all,
The fish have carried on spawning, but so far I've managed to raise a single fry (out of ~1000 eggs), and when I say raise I should say I first saw it when it was already quite big. They look to be slow growing fry.

cheers Darrel
 

ButtNekkid

Active Member
5 Year Member
Messages
315
Location
Finland
Hi,

What do you reckon is the reason for such a low survival rate?
I've seen your tanks, lack of hiding places clearly is not the reason.
 

Chromedome

Member
5 Year Member
Messages
98
I have found two problems with raising fry of Copella. The first was obviously food. Later breeding with C. arnoldi allowed for some experiments. Vinegar worms were too big! So it boiled down to infusoria. I also used a solution of the old Liquifry in the squeeze tubes with limited success. It has a tendency to foul the water quickly, but siphoning not too long after feeding kept some of them alive.

The other factor that I found was, oddly enough, surface movement. In the earliest stages, the fry really want to stay very close to the surface. If there was aeration, it bounced them around so that they were unable to feed. Even very, very slow bubbles of one every few seconds seemed to keep them from eating enough. I put the fry in a very shallow container, with absolutely no aeration or filtration. This did the trick, and they were able to feed. They seemed to still be slow growers, but within a week or so they were visibly feeding better and some started eating vinegar worms.

That was with arnoldi fry, but the others looked the same size from what I remembered.
 

dw1305

Well-Known Member
5 Year Member
Messages
2,755
Location
Wiltshire UK
Hi all,
What do you reckon is the reason for such a low survival rate? I've seen your tanks, lack of hiding places clearly is not the reason.
I think the water might be a bit too hard, as a lot of times the eggs haven't developed.
I have found two problems with raising fry of Copella. The first was obviously food. Later breeding with C. arnoldi allowed for some experiments. Vinegar worms were too big! So it boiled down to infusoria. I also used a solution of the old Liquifry in the squeeze tubes with limited success. It has a tendency to foul the water quickly, but siphoning not too long after feeding kept some of them alive.

The other factor that I found was, oddly enough, surface movement. In the earliest stages, the fry really want to stay very close to the surface. If there was aeration, it bounced them around so that they were unable to feed. Even very, very slow bubbles of one every few seconds seemed to keep them from eating enough. I put the fry in a very shallow container, with absolutely no aeration or filtration. This did the trick, and they were able to feed. They seemed to still be slow growers, but within a week or so they were visibly feeding better and some started eating vinegar worms.

That was with arnoldi fry, but the others looked the same size from what I remembered.
It could definitely be that, the fry I have is only just venturing down into the water column now, before that it has been right in the surface layer, under the Frogbit. When I first saw it, it was eating some micro-worms (There are Corydoras pygmaeus in the tank as well) so there maybe smaller fry, that I've missed, that have succumbed.

It was the same with C. arnoldi, by the time I saw the fry they were already quite big.

cheers Darrel
 

rr16

Active Member
5 Year Member
Messages
536
I had lots of fry from these and have just put some young males in to breed with some females... it's hotting up a bit.
 

JK91

New Member
5 Year Member
Messages
17
I bred C. arnoldi by putting the leaves on which the eggs were laid in a small tank which had been running for a month or so. The first few weeks the fry survived and later on I could feed them nauplii and infusioria. They took rotifer and such not much later. Strangely, I only raised females, not males.
 

rr16

Active Member
5 Year Member
Messages
536
I bred C. arnoldi by putting the leaves on which the eggs were laid in a small tank which had been running for a month or so. The first few weeks the fry survived and later on I could feed them nauplii and infusioria. They took rotifer and such not much later. Strangely, I only raised females, not males.
They should eat infusoria after a few days. I have a batch incubating now.
670C162B-D786-4BCB-811B-D15746E9F218.jpeg
 

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