Spawning A. agassizzi

[Jeffrey Richard]

I have two trios of F1 agassizzi in two separate tanks ... a 29 gallon and a 20 long. They've been set up for at least 3 months ... the fish are at least 1.5 years old. I'm not see any eggs. Looking for tips ...

Current conditions -
tap water, 50% changes one or two times weekly, add Almond leaves
pH around 6.8, hardness around 150 ms
78-82 degrees
feeding once daily ... FD Blackworms and Bloodworms, Krill Pellets, occasional live daphnia and white worms

The tanks have bogwood and several 1/2 clay flower pots as caves ... some java fern and lots of duckweed, hygro.

I have a thin layer of fine gravel.

Tanks have A LOT of maylasian snails (sand burrowers) ... could the snails be eating spawns?

 

[dwarflover]

The snails could possibly be the reason your not seeing eggs. I have lost many spawns because of those dang snails...

What kind of behavior have you noticed from the pairs?

 

[regani]

The structure in the tank may still be too open so that they don't feel secure enough to breed? Could you perhaps post a picture of the tank?

Do you have other fish in the tank?

I have Malaysian trumpet snails and/or pond snails in all my tanks and don't seem to have any noticeable problems with them.

The pH could be a bit lower but is probably ok. What do you mean by 'hardness 150 ms'? Is that measured conductivity or a value from a test kit?
'ms' is the abbreviation for milliseconds, that doesn't make too much sense

 

[Jeffrey Richard]

MS =microsiemens ... conductivity

I haven't seen any real swaning behaivor ...?

 

[lurch1000]

The pedant in me couldn't walk away

ms is milliseconds, mS is milliSiemens, and uS is microSiemens, but with a mu u, not a letter U. This is also expressed against a unit of distance, often cm.

I'll shuffle back under my log now

(Edit for auto-correct issues!)

 

[Mike Wise]

µS = microsiemens. Enter (for windows) Fn + Alt + 0181. Conductivity (metric) is measured in 'Siemens/cm @ °C'.

 

[lurch1000]

Currently flying on Tapatalk, and being a touch-tard, had to do it the verbose way!

Surely the SI unit is S/m (can't figure out how to do superscript -1 either on here).

 

[Mike Wise]

Yes, S/m is standard notation. Temperature is also an important component of conductivity in science. It's just not that commonly used in the hobby.

 

[lurch1000]

Indeed, although dont most meters tell you the temperature? Not sure whether to believe mine, shows way warmer than the other thermometers say.

 

[Mike Wise]

True, but most aquarium hobbyists seem to omit temperature.

 

[lurch1000]

To be honest, I vary on the temperature bit, depends who I'm talking to. Often I just give the TDS. I appear to have gone from a pendantic quip to taking this thread a little further from the direction it was going. My apologies to the OP!

 

[regani]

150 uS (sorry, lurch, no special letters on my iPad ) is not too bad. My agassizii are breeding in a tank with 120uS, the pH is lower, though.
But with your parameters they should at least go through the motions if they feel reasonably happy, which means it could be that they still feel too exposed?
Or, excuse the stupid question, are you really sure you males and females? Should be really obvious in 1.5 year old agassizii, though.
I'd probably try to rearrange the tank, add more cover, maybe reduce the lighting, even cover part of the tank to create a quiet and sheltered corner, and then wait for a few more weeks and see what happens.

 

[lurch1000]

For a µ on iOS, apparently if you hold the letter and/or move your finger left or right, it brings up alternative characters. iPod flat at the minute, so can't test it (I'm on a PC now so can do the characters)

Back to the hardness (more the carbonate hardness or KH) this is measured in degrees (commonly German) or ppm or mg/l. Ideally you want this to be low, lower the better, you probably don't have a high KH as your pH is below 7, but that's a generalisation rather than anything else. The lower the KH though the lower the pH can slide, and rapid changes in pH can be detrimental to some fish. Suffice to say, South American fish will be used to water with very little carbonate content.

As mentioned, a picture of the tank would be helpful to indicate the current habitat.