video of Rocket pencilfish spawning (with A. bitaeniata watching in the background)

[guits]

I've kept Nannostomus eques with my apistogramma as a dither with much success. They usually occupy the upper half of the tank, encourage the apistogramma to swim in the open, and seem to have minimal impact on apistogramma fry. Today I noticed some increased activity among the pencilfish, and it turns out they were spawning. Two of the adult males were avidly pursuing an adult female for several hours. It appears that the female intends to deposit the eggs on the underside of the java fern. However if you look carefully the eggs wind up falling to the bottom. I was able to get video and wanted to share. My male Apistogramma bitaeniata makes a cameo appearance, and notice in the second video that he actually snatches up an egg for a snack!

[video=youtube;YTzXJf0-CeU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTzXJf0-CeU&context=C47bcb56ADvjVQa1PpcFPEDFmFP5RkujT0pgqZwsz7 pJ0qfOUMqSg=[/video]

[video=youtube;tlwXI4R0u60]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlwXI4R0u60&context=C4936e45ADvjVQa1PpcFPEDFmFP5RkuqDIp4gD-p9GPMh6G-FV1JU=[/video]

And since this is an apistogramma forum, here is a shot of the A. bitaeniata from Peru in the same tank. Enjoy!

 

[hapaluku]

Hello.
Lovely lovely video....congratulation
One of my favorit pensil fish

 

[ste12000]

Nice video and welcome to the forum..

 

[tjudy]

Very cool!

 

[Apistomaster]

N. eques is probably my favorite Pencilfish. I have about 2 dozen in my planted Tetra tank which is a 125 gal tank. My Pencilfish occasionally spawn in this large community tank but there is no way any fry would ever survive. I have 100 Green Neons, 12 Robert's Tetras, 10 Diamond Tetras, 12 Silver hatchets, 20 Rummy nose Tetras, some Copella spilota and about 8 Dicrossus filamentosus.
Raising the fry of N. eques is a challenge. Their small fry have the same small tube-like mouth as adults and require microscopic foods for many weeks before all can eat newly hatched brine shrimp and microworms. It is usually necessary to overlap feeding both foods until the fry are all larger.