Hello all! I'm very excited about this spawn, however, as I had stated in my Teaser, the goal of this spawn is not for selling fry but is for developing my marble line. But, I will be selling the unwanted fry to the first takers ( I already have one in line but you can PM me if you are interested).
With that said, let us proceed!
Note* To clarify, the females and Celli were from a Marble HMPK x Marble DeT spawn. Therefore they have both have the short fin recessive trait which should help me get some HMPK out of the line.
Spawn #1
Pongo x Female 1
Fins: HMPK x DeT
Coloration: Dragon Black & White Marble x Black & White Marble
Spawn # 2
Celli x Female 2
Fins: DeT x DeT
Coloration: Cellophane Marble x Blue, green, white Marble
Sorry for the poor picture.
The fish were conditioned in 1/2 gallon buckets floating in heated water.
This was the spawn tank setup:
Not bad for my first attempt at a double spawn, haha. I would do it differently if I do it again, but this did well. There are three different dividers so the males couldn't see each other plus fake plants in front of it.
The males quickly made bubblenests when they were put in the spawn tank. Pongo always has his mouth slightly open so his bubbles were quite large, which made me worry because I hadn't never experienced that kind of nest before. The females were in their own containers in the tank for three days before they were released.
Here are some videos of the introductions:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eoqjn...eature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSuWs4aIOes
Pongo was trying to show off a lot more than Celli was, he was a lot more aggressive it seemed. Female 1 was very aggressive as well, but I kept a close eye on them. Female 2 was more submissive after about 20 minutes. For the next couple days, the males spent more time under their nests trying to lure the females. That next Friday, I walked in on spawn #2 embracing under the nest but quickly realized this was not their first spawn for there were already fry under the nest. When Celli started chasing the female away, I removed her from the tank.
Pongo and Female one had also had some very clumsy embraces, however it was also not their first spawn either. Pongo was very exhausted so I took him and the females out, as well as the tank divider and let Celli take over both nests. He was very active which made me worry that he had been eating some of the fry.
The days after made me realize what a good father Celli was. He was not eating any fry or eggs, he made another smaller bubblenests on the other side of the tank from the filter and had condensed all of the eggs into that nest. He even tried spitting the free swimmers into the nest but they would not stay there (little buggers). Once the youngest fry were free swimming Celli was removed and put into his conditioning tub. The other fish were already back in their homes and doing great (except for female #2 who underwent a bit of fin damage so she was floating in her sorority with medication and was released back into the sorority the same time as two new girls were out of quarantine)
It became clear that I had a wide variety of ages within my tank, which made me wonder if the bigger fry were going to munch on the smaller ones. I still am a little worried about that for I do not see as many of the small fry as I once did, however they do hide a lot easier than the big ones.
I experienced disaster when the BBS eggs that I had were not longer good and my LFS did not have any in stock, so the fry have not yet had anything live to eat, but they have been munching on First Bites as well as insforia from the moss in the tank. I hope to have microworms by Monday and am going to keep checking my LFS to see when they get those eggs in.
SO, in recap, the oldest fry in the tank are most likely just about 3 weeks old today, and the youngest are over 1 and a half weeks. This is my first spawn in an actually tank so it's great being able to see them from the sides and not just over head. In fact, and I wish I could get a good picture of this, one of the bigger fry already looks to have bluish metallic coloration. (Excitement!) Now, unfortunately I will not be able to tell what fry belongs to what spawn, and I did not intend on having them mixed, but because Pongo was in such bad shape, I had to for the sake of the fry. Regardless, the best fry will be kept no matter what spawn they are from.
Here are the best pictures I have of the little guys! Enjoy!
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