Crenicichla Regani

[Dread]

Anyone have any experience with Crenicichla Regani? Right now, I have a setup of 3f/1m in a 55g gallon. I'm looking to spawn them if possible. I know they're of the Rio Tapajos strain. Any information or experience with them are welcome!

 

[a.d.wood]

Hi there,

My current set up:

Tank: all glass 24 x 18 x 18", approx 130 litres

Water: on the central filter system so pH approx 5.0, KH at 0, GH at 0 and temperature about 27 degrees C.

Decor: silica sand substrate, bog wood and potted amazon sword (includes 1 large bit of bog wood that is more root like and goes from top to bottom of the tank).

Feeding: frozen foods only (turn their noses up at flake and prima), using daphnia, bloodworm, artemia and krill

Tank occupants: 1 pair Crenicichla regani (mine are both about 8cm SL just now).

When they were in the show tank, they got along fine with the angels and severums (both considerably bigger than the pikes). I haven't put anything else in with them in the breeding tank though.

When the mouth brooding severums moved out to the fish house, the Crenicichla regani moved out into the breeding tank detailed above as well. With the good supply of live food from the severums (3 weekly supply of fry!!), I'm sure they bred in the show tank, but the fry were then predated on by the other inhabitants of the show tank.

The female did lay a batch of eggs in the breeding tank when they first moved into the fish house, but you learn the hard way, once the fry start feeding they need a lot more food than I'm used to with the Apisto's and if there isn't enough food the adults turn on the fry. The female is fattening up nicely again, so hopefully second time lucky.

Male (crap shot but at least you can see the distinctive tail markings):

Female (from what I understand, the number of spots in the dorsal can vary from 1 to 3):

 

[tjudy]

Getting a female into spawning condition usually requires a lot of live food. Francine Bethea, who has spawned this pike species and others on a regular basis, swears by clean, healthy black worms... lots of them.

 

[Dread]

Bump! Thank you for the information, guys. If anyone has anything else about these fish, let me know.

 

[Apistomaster]

I have been trying to spawn my Crenicichla regani but they have not been cooperating either. They can consume a huge amount of black worms and the females seem so close; big fat rosy bellies. The females had one to three dorsal fin eye spots. I had six which included two males. Big male killed smaller male. So the remaining one has many opportunities but I just haven't given them a missing trigger. A Czech fish breeding friend swears on using Cichlid fry to make his C. regani breed and all I have are discus fry which are not scheduled to appear on a Pike Cichlid's menu. The Discus eat enough of their own eggs or fry.