Saving spawns - intervene or let nature take its course?

[macarius]

This is my first post to this forum and i'd first like to thank Neil and the apistogramma.com crew for creating/maintaining this forum.

i purchased a trio of A. sp. aff. juruensis 'Rio Nanay' from Neil last year and they are all doing well. They live in a planted community tank with a small group of juvenile Cory. caudimaculatus and bloodfin tetras. Both females have been spawning regularly all winter long, practically every other week which sometimes worries me as a little too often. All the spawns have been unsuccessful so far with the best attempt being the first set that resulted in 24 free swimming fry. The female did a decent job of guarding them but eventually allowed the male to eat them. i haven't seen any free swimming fry since.

So far, i've been pretty hands off with them, allowing them to spawn at will and letting things happen without mucking with water chemistry or rearranging the tank/fish. Now i'm wondering if there's anything that i could or should be doing to give these spawns a greater chance of success short of isolating the mother. How do people feel about removing the eggs or free swimming fry from the tank early on in the process? What other things have you guys tried in community setups? Thanks for your help.

Rob

 

[aspen]

here's an e-mail i recieved from cary strong at great lakes discus about breeding rams:

Ok Rick'
Right after they lay I take the Eggs and put them in a 1Gal Jar same water as they were in. Add airstone On low with 3 drops of 37% formaldehyde and then place that into a 29Gal tank with a tap water drip! Only when Eggs turn dark I release them into the 29 and turn on the drip. After Hatchout They will wiggle up to 5 days depending on temp
I use a temp of 84F and drip is set to the same.

When They form a cloud and free swim I used Mike reeds NoBB + APR After the 3rd Day of free swim I started to add Baby Brine. (CBB) Not SFBB or UBB. CBB is smaller then the two. HTH
TakeCare'
Cary

cary raises rams by the thousands artificially. the most important 2 things are cleanliness and the fry being free of flukes. after that it is up to you to get them eating, and to be healthy and strong. the formaldehyde will help in both of these areas. it will control the flukes and keep the bacteria level down in the tank. flukes will not bother your adult fish that much but will kill baby fish quite effectively. you might not even know that you have them. but when a baby fish does the darting, swirling and dying thing, it often died from a fluke attack. note: you can actually treat an egg with formaldehyde for flukes. also, i have treated 11 day old discus fry with potassium permanganate, and also with 37% formaldehyde, with no problems. (NEVER together- that is a real bad combination)

btw, allowing nature to take it's course, involves feeding fry to parasites other fish and bacteria- not my choice, i'm afraid.

hth, rick

 

[Z Man]

I don't want to start a problem with my first post, but Rams and Apistogramma are two completely different animals when it comes to spawning. Apisto's are egg hiders and Rams are open spawners. When wanting to save Apisto eggs and fry, I always remove the female AND the pot with the eggs to their own 5-gallon tank. If this is not done, she may kill the male or either one may eat the eggs. Rams are not very good parents so that is why Cary removes the eggs. As for the Rams, I always breed them in a 5 or 10-gallon bare tank and remove both parents after spawning. Somewhat the like Cary does, only a different twist regarding which to remove. The eggs or the parents. My Rams usually place the eggs on the tank glass so removing them is almost impossible. So, to answer your original question, I would remove both the female and eggs and let her take care of them.

 

[aspen]

hey z-man, thanks for that clarification. i'll keep that in mind. maybe you don't remember me, but i e-mailed you quite a while back and you helped me out with my first rams. thanks, huh? have a nice day.

rick hawkins
toronto
(aka, aspen)

p.s., that is why i put a closed china pot in my apisto cacatuoides tank- to act as a 'cave' and to maintain cleanliness, and to make it easier to pull the eggs when then are laid. the little 'pot' is some kind of a japanese pot, with a removable lid with a 1 1/2" hole in the top. the pair have taken up residence in the pot and i await the spawn. i will then try an artificial hatch, without the female the first time. if unsuccessful, i will remove the female and the eggs.

 

[Neil]

Welcome to the forum macarius and Zman !!!

macarius,
I have gone through the pulling the eggs thing, the pulling the female and the eggs thing and the pulling the every other I can think of thing a bunch of times.
I have found that, although all can and are successful at times, there is no replacing the natural spawning and brood-care functions of fish. There is almost always a reason that a fish is eating the eggs. Did you actually see the male eat the first spawn? Wasn't he busy bombing the tetras and other fish? It has been my experience that male Apistogramma rarely eat their newly swimming young. Their investment in the propagation of their genes is usually too valuable to them. On the other hand, females frequently eat their eggs and their free swimming young. This is probably because their investment is not so great as they are able to produce another batch of eggs again with another male of their choosing. The male does not have that luxury.
Females will often eat their eggs when water conditions or territorial safety concerns are, in their minds, unsatisfactory. They use the nutritional value of the eggs as an investment in the next spawn. This may be why you are having spawns so regularly. They also are not above eating maturing fry to make room and/or decrease possible predation (by old fry eating eggs or young fry) for a new spawning. The male will sometimes, also, engage in this effort because his natural instinct is to produce more young. But he is just as likely to just keep the older fry away from the newer spawn.
I have found that moving the eggs alone (artificial rearing) is a pain and may produce behavioral lapses in the fry when it is their turn to spawn, because they seem to learn important lessons from their parents. (I wish my daughters figured that out!) And moving the eggs with the mother, while a more satisfactory method, still can end in eaten eggs, because the stress of moving may be one of those things that bugs the female. I say all this to emphasize (just some of) the things that can be at play here, not to discourage you from trying some of the others' methods.
If it is definitely the male eating the fry and the eggs, then separate him after spawning in one way or another.
If it is the female eating the eggs, then check the water parameters of the breeding tank! And, when you remove the female and eggs, be careful to replicate those conditions.
I usually do everything I can in terms of keeping the water clean and at an appropriate pH, hardness, temp. until they bring out young on their own and then, after a week or so, I will remove the female more often than the male. I haven't heard of too many keepers that do this, but it works well for me. I just think that the male is less likely to loose his mind and eat the young.
Neil

p.s. Happy to have you aboard Zman. Zman is a longtime apistophile(sp?) and has been at this awhile. He also has a good site! It is in my links page. Check it out :!:

 

[Charlotte]

suggestion

Just a suggestion...

After you figure out for sure who is eating the eggs, and if you decide that you do want to seperate them, I suggest that you remove the egg-eating parent and the other fish in the tank instead of moving the "good parent" and fry. This way, the babies are not stressed or compromised in any way from the move, and the parent doesn't have to deal with a new tank in addition to the already stressful spawning and baby-raising. I think this would be worth a try, and much easier than artificially rearing fry. (I am tempted to do this with my male ram who I have watched eat two spawns so far. I am giving him one more chance. I'll follow up with him after we see what happens.)

I say all this because in all experiences I have had raising other animals, they were much more likely to freak out and eat their babies after a move or disturbance. Don't laugh yet- Since I have been learning about spawning fish, I have noticed many, many similarities with the mice, rabbits, dogs, goats, hamsters, etc that I have raised when it comes to breeding instincts. And believe me, everyone mentioned above except for the goats will eat their babies if (as Neil mentioned) some condition is not right. (or if they have it in their head that something is not right.)

-Charlotte

 

[Cichlids1]

I always pull the first spawn and hatch artificially. This ensures I have some available to me after I end up killing the parents from too much or not enough tinkering. After that, I normally let them have a few tries before I pull another spawn. They do seem to grow faster with the parent(s) than they do for me. Even with religous waterchanges and tons af varying foods. I always make sure the adults see me take the eggs too. Seems to be less aggression afterwards than if the eggs just dissapear. By pulling, you do miss the interaction between the parents, fry, and other tankmates. For example, I can tell when there is a spawn in my big community tank. Not by the way the supposed parents are acting, but by the way the regani pike act. They bury themselves in the chain swords and await for the parents to escort the fry to the chains to feed. I never see that behavior until there are fry somewhere in the tank. Tis rather neat to see

 

[Charlotte]

The missing eggs...

Following up on that pair that I mentioned...

The male ate the first spawn, and I thought that he had eaten this one too, and was considering pulling him after the next one. But today, they have moved a pile of wigglers back to the piece of slate! I looked all over that tank yesterday and could not see them anywhere- they must have been hidden well. Hopefully they should be free-swimming between tomorrow and Saturday. So far, they are doing better as parents for this spawn, their second together.

-Charlotte

 

[Neil]

Charlotte,
I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Let us know what happens!
They are sneakly little devils sometimes, aren't they?

 

[macarius]

Thanks & an update

Thanks to everyone for the advice and info. Can't believe my first post even generated a response from the famous Zman!

In response to questions from Neil, Charlotte and others, the male is definitely not eating the eggs because the mother won't let him or anyone else get near her cave, so if anyone is eating the eggs, it's definitely mom. The male spends his time chasing the other non brooding female into a corner in her territory, and occasionally harasses the corys when they come into his territory. That's when i know there are fry somewhere in the tank.

Because the tank is planted and grown in, i can't remove the cave and the mother without disturbing things a bit, so that's a last resort. Probably better for me to isolate the male and one of the females in another special breeding tank when i get desperate.

i had always assumed that since they were spawning regularly and exhibiting parenting behavior that everything was fine in their environment, but now i'll check the water chemistry and see if there's anything i should do. i'm reluctant to tinker too much with it because i'm no expert.

i'll also watch the fish interactions more closely to see if the mother gets easily spooked by the other fish. Everyone seems so well behaved when i'm around but who knows what they're up to behind my back :wink:

One other question for you folks along this line - to what extent is my presence and curiosity freaking them out? By looking for fry among the plants with a flashlight or by coming up close to the tank, am i scaring the mother into eating her brood? She certainly doesn't appear frightened when i come by, but i'm not convinced that i shouldn't also be among the list of suspects...

Thanks again for all your help.

Rob

 

[aspen]

rob, you are right imo, to be worried about fooling with your water parms, without being sure how to do it. but, how about measuring your ph, gh and kh, and let's see if we can come up with a better water mix for your tank. aeratea sample of your tapwater for 24hours and then perform the measurements. it may just involve mixing a couple of gallons of grocery store r/o to some tap to get a better water mix. i am not a fan of using anything which must be added to water to get a lower ph. it seems better to use softer water than water of a lower ph to me. the trick about water parms and lower ph is that the water must be stable at the lower ph. a ph crash is the worst thing that you can do.

rick