sahenson21
New Member
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- 4
Hello!
I have been trying to breed apistogramma cacatuoides for a few months now but keep having problems. A year or two ago, we had a pair that would routinely spawn, but they often had really small batches of fry. I think this was due to our hard water and the eggs not hatching well in it. Since then, that pair has passed away and I have been focusing on trying to breed some of their offspring, but I keep running into issues.
1. I was having a great deal of trouble trying to get the apistos to spawn, so I started using rainwater and now I can get them to spawn every 1-2 weeks. So that was great!
2. My first few spawns, I wanted to let the parents do it because that's how my last pair did. However, they were either eating the eggs each time or the snails in the tank would eat them. I have noticed that the females just let the ramshorn snails right into their cave for a buffet. Has anyone else noticed this?
3. I decided to counter this by stripping the eggs when I noticed them and putting the cave + eggs in methylene blue. Some of the eggs turned white and fungused, but most of them stayed the reddish / orange color, so I was hopeful these would hatch, however most of them ended up fungusing as well. Out of 3 clutches of eggs, I got around 10-15 wrigglers. When I saw wrigglers, I started doing small water changes with the water from the parent's tank to dilute the methelyne blue. Once most of that was out, I transfered the fry to a hang-on breeder box on the parent's tank so that they'd have constant fresh water. However, it has been about a week since then and most of the wrigglers have since died before becoming free swimming.
What can I do to increase my hatch rate? Should I move the eggs/cave directly from parent's tank and put them in pure rainwater instead of tank water for softer water? Should I try hydrogen peroxide instead of methelyne blue? Similarly, any advice on getting them from wrigglers to free swimmers? I was raising angelfish fry that were hatched on the same day as the apistos, and around 70 of those made it to freeswimmers in their separate breeder box, so I really have no idea!
Any help would be appreciated, these are some of my favorite fish and I'd love to be able to reproduce them better.
I have been trying to breed apistogramma cacatuoides for a few months now but keep having problems. A year or two ago, we had a pair that would routinely spawn, but they often had really small batches of fry. I think this was due to our hard water and the eggs not hatching well in it. Since then, that pair has passed away and I have been focusing on trying to breed some of their offspring, but I keep running into issues.
1. I was having a great deal of trouble trying to get the apistos to spawn, so I started using rainwater and now I can get them to spawn every 1-2 weeks. So that was great!
2. My first few spawns, I wanted to let the parents do it because that's how my last pair did. However, they were either eating the eggs each time or the snails in the tank would eat them. I have noticed that the females just let the ramshorn snails right into their cave for a buffet. Has anyone else noticed this?
3. I decided to counter this by stripping the eggs when I noticed them and putting the cave + eggs in methylene blue. Some of the eggs turned white and fungused, but most of them stayed the reddish / orange color, so I was hopeful these would hatch, however most of them ended up fungusing as well. Out of 3 clutches of eggs, I got around 10-15 wrigglers. When I saw wrigglers, I started doing small water changes with the water from the parent's tank to dilute the methelyne blue. Once most of that was out, I transfered the fry to a hang-on breeder box on the parent's tank so that they'd have constant fresh water. However, it has been about a week since then and most of the wrigglers have since died before becoming free swimming.
What can I do to increase my hatch rate? Should I move the eggs/cave directly from parent's tank and put them in pure rainwater instead of tank water for softer water? Should I try hydrogen peroxide instead of methelyne blue? Similarly, any advice on getting them from wrigglers to free swimmers? I was raising angelfish fry that were hatched on the same day as the apistos, and around 70 of those made it to freeswimmers in their separate breeder box, so I really have no idea!
Any help would be appreciated, these are some of my favorite fish and I'd love to be able to reproduce them better.