Our first attempt Male CT and VT female

[Saphire]

So back in december we tried to mate our Ct Male with a nice little girl... Epic fail! The girlie was roughted up and ended dying a little while later. He was mean!!!

14 days ago we decides to give it another try. We set up a 5 gal tank and separated it in 3 sections. The male was stuck in the middle with a female on either side of him. Once we saw who he was interested in, we put the other girl back in the main tank.

It took almost a week for our boy to start making bubbles. We kept them well fed with frozen bloodworms,frozen brine shrimps and home-grown fruitflies.

Finally, last tuesday we let them out together in mid-afternoon and we waited. They were very nice to each other but HE wasn't satisfied with his net so nothing happened. They we separated for the night.
The next morning, they were but back together again; after a few hours we had a 3 hour spawning which gave us around 250 eggs.

Out of those 250, only 25 hatched. We are now a the end of day 6 and we have counted at the most 15 free swimming babies in the tank. The others have either died OR are hopefully hiding in the java moss.


this is Dad


This is mom

[Saphire]

Dad did not appreciate me and my camera... or perharps it was the distubance of the nest when we released momma the second morning...


Still for a first time father, he did a great job!


Still trying to take pictures of the little ones but my camera can't focus on them

[Oldfishlady]

Congrats....now the fun begins.....lol.....

Do you plan to leave the male long term, are they eating well and what are you feeding.....

[Saphire]

Originally Posted by Oldfishlady

Congrats....now the fun begins.....lol.....

Do you plan to leave the male long term, are they eating well and what are you feeding.....

Dad has gone back to his own ten gal 2 days ago, before he could have a snack.

Judging by the round tummys they are eating the microworms in the bottom of the tank. We also have some brine shrimp on hand ready ( we have a fresh litter of swords fry in another tank)

We have been doing small water changes every day to keep the tank from getting polluted with the leftover food. Still trying to figure out the right amount of food to distribute...

Question to regular breeders: I have been doing lots of reading and see that some people fill the tank up when babies are free swimming whereas others keep the water level low... In your experience which is better??? we have 4 inches of water in now and are debating whether we should fill it or not.

[Oldfishlady]

Good deal.....be sure and keep the decaying microworms cleaned up-sometimes with the bare bottom method the bacteria that microworms create can cause missing ventral fins....sometimes by adding a few common snails can help with clean up of the decaying MW....

I spawn using a natural method-soil based full to the top with water heavy planted 5-10gal tanks-but when I did use the standard bare bottom, low water method........

In the low water spawns-once I started adding food- I would remove half gallon and replace with 1gal 1 time a day in 5gal with the fry-
I would use the drip/gravity method to replace the water-once full I would start making at least 50% daily to twice daily after you feed with 15 fry in the 5gal......

[Saphire]

What are the common snails you are refering to??? We have melanoids (cone shaped ones) in the community tank to keep the soil aerated. Would they be good?

[Oldfishlady]

The live bearing trumpet snails....yes, they will work....I use them in my soil based tanks for soil aeration too...as well as the common pond and ramshorn...they all have jobs in my systems.....

[lvandert]

Yay! Babies! Their so cute. Good luck with raising them.

[Saphire]

We are starting week number 3 of our fry's live. We've had a few losses but remaining babies seem to be doing good. Counted 14 of them last night while doing daily water change

Also (finally) found a CT female for the next repro! She's not a perfect crown; friend breeder was saying she's probably and offspring of a CT and VT repro.
CT female don'T seem to be very common around here . Most LFS have VT females and most breeders in the area are doing HM, deltas and DT...

[Saphire]

Lost 5 babies again :( still counted 9 of them during tank refill and feeding time...