DOUBLE OCCIE SPAWN!

[TaffyFish]

My ocellatus tank contains 1m, 2f and a smaller, spare male plus 3 x 3" juvie syno petricola and a female bristlenose.

Returned home from work yesterday to discover that both females had fry in their shells last night! Have lost occie spawns before in just a few days so not expecting many or any to survive for long.

 

[st.anger]

sounds like the little guy had a good night

 

[UKSouth]

Well done mate, I would be in the market if you get lucky and raise any females. I have two handsmone males waiting for their perfect partner.

One of the LFS near me has them at £12 but to be honest the quality wasn't that great and I want to make sure I don't loose either male to this mystery illness. My other female is doing ok but she has a white swelling above one of her eyes, any ideas?

I have high hopes for my Calvus, they seem to be warming to each other a little. Well the male has stopped biting her and she has set up her own territory at last.

 

[TaffyFish]

good luck with the calvus, I hear they are very slooooooow growing though.

If I get some more females you'd be more than welcome, I've also a surfeit of males, 3 spares at the moment. No idea about the swelling - their quite feisty fish so my first guess would be physical damage. £12 each eh, maybe I'd better get the synos out of there!?

 

[Purple]

lol - the Synos will be ok till they get a bit bigger. Mine came over to check out the shellies, tried to suck on them a bit, but soon got fed up with it as the shellies kept swimming off. He doesn't bother them at all now.

 

[UKSouth]

Talking of Synos my five Petricola are becoming more confident by the day, I actually saw all five in the open the other day. At feeding time they are very active.

Great addition to the tank.

 

[TaffyFish]

Still my favourite fish, UKSouth, got 9 in 3 tanks. They run around like vacuum cleaners at feeding time grabbing anything that either hits the substrate or lies on the water surface - vacuum cleaners that work upside down too!

The occie fry are already wandering from the maternal shell, won't be long now before a syno gets one or two.

Found the bristlenose dead this morning, only lasted 2 days! :-(

 

[UKSouth]

I lost around 6 Occie spawns although I made no real effort to raise them. I think the longest the fry lasted was around 3 weeks. They aren't the greatest parents in the world, the fry just do as they please.

Sorry to hear about your bristlenose, never kept them myself, any ideas what happened to it?

Are you still breeding your Cyps? My upgrade is back on and I really want to raise a decent shoal.

Just wondered wether you leave the fry to take their chances in the main tank. I wish I hadn't given my 2 broods away now, best fry I have ever had.

 

[TaffyFish]

I'm a bit torn with the occies, trouble is I want to keep my Q tank as a Q tank and not give in to temptation to use it as a fry grow on tank ......it would be nice if a few fry survived in there. I don't want to go through all the hassle of raising fry only to find you can't even give them away!

I bought the bristlenose on Tuesday evening, didn't see her until I found her dead this morning. She had obviously fed for the first time on the brown algae in the tank. It was a 3.5" adult, kept in pH 8.2 water so I am at a loss to explain her death other than she was perhaps already dying of something.

Yes, the cyps are still breeding. I let the female spit them in the community last time to see if they'd make it but never even saw them. I've got 1m, 2f, 8 juvies and 4 fry growing on so I'm soon reaching the point where I'll have some spares. Next time I will move the female (to an empty Q tank!) as soon as I see that she's holding.

 

[TaffyFish]

Only one ocellatus fry remains from the double spawn, they've been picked off by the synos. I've tried to keep them well fed but they can't resist a snack!

Added 4 new escargot shells (courtesy of Purple) last night and both females seem to be interested in setting up new nests. I love it when they start all the digging and bulldozing.

I still have 3 spare ocellatus males if anyone's interested.

Lost my male cyp to bloat a little while back so there'll be no new fry for a while - there's 10 cyps in the Trigon and 4 more growing on in this occie tank. Now the excitement of waiting for a male to colour up and assert himself.