Sometimes the needs of your fish out weigh the wants of the fish keeper!
This is a lesson I know all to well, but like most from time to time tend to for get, or disregard on the count of my own want's. Here goes the story.
I was recently attempting to breed two of my best flowerhorn breeders (Zod & Pele). Zod is a excellante Red Dragon Male and Pele a masterpiece female Red Kamalau. I have breed the sucessfully before, but got cheated badly out of the batch! Instead of 300-500 fry I only got around 80 that hatched. This was due to the female laying the eggs very speraticly on the bottom of the tank inbetween two large rocks. Instead of a rock or pot. Due to this fact the male was only able to manuver over and fetilize less than half the eggs. When breeding flowerhorn once the batch has hatch you can expect to lose some right off the bat before they are free swimming (week one's) this also happened leaving me with only around 40-60. I grew these out and was very supprized to find out that unlike any of the other many batch of flowerhorn I have breed. These I was now raising were murdering bastards at a very young age! They were grwon out in a 100 gallon with plunty of space and should not have begun turning on eachother until they were around 3''. These little one's started knocking eachother of at 1.5'', and so to make that long story short. I ended up with 15 left (the biggest CHEAT of a batch I have ever experianced). Now fealing that cheated you can imagin I was hot to try again for redemtion
so comes the later half of the story and lesson learned.
When you breed flowerhorn sometimes you must deploy several different techniques until one takes to avoid the total destruction and or death of your breeders. Especially if you want to minimize the damage to your show quality breeders so they do not end up being turds for life when you are done. During the first breeding of these two I was forced to pull/ separate the male from the female immediately after he had fertilized the eggs, because the female went psycho on him and it would have been a needless war. That is when I should have learn my lesson! Some background info on this particular female-She is a worrier and has destroyed 3 males of mine, leaving none that could tame her or breed with her, that is before she meet Zod. Zod himself is the MAN and every time introduced to her will put it down and she now knows her place (his fighting skills are excellent
. So back to the story. The first batch I felt cheated for good reason and wanted redemption, but remember the breeding worked because I was also forced to separate the pair after fertilization. This also annoyed me because I wanted the pair to both take care of the young and raise them up for a bit before I pulled them both from the young ,that was my (WANT).
The second breeding attempt went down well she laid eggs he fertilized. This time I though I was going to get what I wanted as she allowed him to stay with her for the fist night. In the morning, she went crazy, and they went to war!! I pulled the male because while he was doing a good job of laying the smack down on her. I know this female fish and she would have fought at that point to the death! I pull the male thinking things would have been just like the first batch. I was very wrong! All during the night and the next day even after he was gone. She had been so preoccupied with him, that she did not tend to the eggs at all. This caused the entire batch to mold after the first days end and this second attempt crashed and burned into a ball of flames that only inflames me more
.
Now comes the third attempt last week. Everything goes well this time. The male fertilized the eggs, female was cool the first night. I checked in the morning and everything looked good
. Came home that evening expecting success. Instead I found failure. They were at war and Zod had laid the smack down something fierce. The female had been up to her usual games and was not allowing him to come near which he was not having. The stupid female this whole time had not cared for the eggs and they were all crap after this first day. Needless to say I was quite pissed. The lesson learned here is although it was my want to have them raise the fry together. Sometimes the fish's needs out weigh the fish keepers wants no matter how many different tricks her or she pulls out of the hat! I now know what I should have come to terms with after the first breeding. Which is that when breeding these two I must pull the male right after fertilization if I want the mother to care for the eggs. A real bummer but that is the way it is
here is a pic of Zod and Pele for you guys
This is a lesson I know all to well, but like most from time to time tend to for get, or disregard on the count of my own want's. Here goes the story.
I was recently attempting to breed two of my best flowerhorn breeders (Zod & Pele). Zod is a excellante Red Dragon Male and Pele a masterpiece female Red Kamalau. I have breed the sucessfully before, but got cheated badly out of the batch! Instead of 300-500 fry I only got around 80 that hatched. This was due to the female laying the eggs very speraticly on the bottom of the tank inbetween two large rocks. Instead of a rock or pot. Due to this fact the male was only able to manuver over and fetilize less than half the eggs. When breeding flowerhorn once the batch has hatch you can expect to lose some right off the bat before they are free swimming (week one's) this also happened leaving me with only around 40-60. I grew these out and was very supprized to find out that unlike any of the other many batch of flowerhorn I have breed. These I was now raising were murdering bastards at a very young age! They were grwon out in a 100 gallon with plunty of space and should not have begun turning on eachother until they were around 3''. These little one's started knocking eachother of at 1.5'', and so to make that long story short. I ended up with 15 left (the biggest CHEAT of a batch I have ever experianced). Now fealing that cheated you can imagin I was hot to try again for redemtion
so comes the later half of the story and lesson learned.When you breed flowerhorn sometimes you must deploy several different techniques until one takes to avoid the total destruction and or death of your breeders. Especially if you want to minimize the damage to your show quality breeders so they do not end up being turds for life when you are done. During the first breeding of these two I was forced to pull/ separate the male from the female immediately after he had fertilized the eggs, because the female went psycho on him and it would have been a needless war. That is when I should have learn my lesson! Some background info on this particular female-She is a worrier and has destroyed 3 males of mine, leaving none that could tame her or breed with her, that is before she meet Zod. Zod himself is the MAN and every time introduced to her will put it down and she now knows her place (his fighting skills are excellent
. So back to the story. The first batch I felt cheated for good reason and wanted redemption, but remember the breeding worked because I was also forced to separate the pair after fertilization. This also annoyed me because I wanted the pair to both take care of the young and raise them up for a bit before I pulled them both from the young ,that was my (WANT). The second breeding attempt went down well she laid eggs he fertilized. This time I though I was going to get what I wanted as she allowed him to stay with her for the fist night. In the morning, she went crazy, and they went to war!! I pulled the male because while he was doing a good job of laying the smack down on her. I know this female fish and she would have fought at that point to the death! I pull the male thinking things would have been just like the first batch. I was very wrong! All during the night and the next day even after he was gone. She had been so preoccupied with him, that she did not tend to the eggs at all. This caused the entire batch to mold after the first days end and this second attempt crashed and burned into a ball of flames that only inflames me more
. Now comes the third attempt last week. Everything goes well this time. The male fertilized the eggs, female was cool the first night. I checked in the morning and everything looked good
. Came home that evening expecting success. Instead I found failure. They were at war and Zod had laid the smack down something fierce. The female had been up to her usual games and was not allowing him to come near which he was not having. The stupid female this whole time had not cared for the eggs and they were all crap after this first day. Needless to say I was quite pissed. The lesson learned here is although it was my want to have them raise the fry together. Sometimes the fish's needs out weigh the fish keepers wants no matter how many different tricks her or she pulls out of the hat! I now know what I should have come to terms with after the first breeding. Which is that when breeding these two I must pull the male right after fertilization if I want the mother to care for the eggs. A real bummer but that is the way it is here is a pic of Zod and Pele for you guys
