How to breed firemouths
- Thread starter Onion01
- Start date
Great thread.
Just to add some info, I have a pair of Firemouths in my tank and I made them two caves to choose from for the fry (both made of rock, not a plant pot). Instead of using it they excavated the slate base which is used to weight down my bogwood and laid their eggs there. Maybe a teracota pot would have been better but I'm going for a more natural look as it is a display tank.
As for tankmates, I have them in with three angels, two blue gourami, 5 rosy barbs and a bristlenosed plec. The barbs make great dither fish and are far less aggressive than Tiger barbs from what I have seen. I am still unsure about the Bristlenose, if i catch him eating the eggs/fry then I'll get rid of him. The FM and angelfish just leave each other alone.
oh, and fyi the tank is a 3' 65gallon. It is fine for now but could get crowded if the Angels pair off.
Any advice on the Bristlenose would be very welcome.
Just to add some info, I have a pair of Firemouths in my tank and I made them two caves to choose from for the fry (both made of rock, not a plant pot). Instead of using it they excavated the slate base which is used to weight down my bogwood and laid their eggs there. Maybe a teracota pot would have been better but I'm going for a more natural look as it is a display tank.
As for tankmates, I have them in with three angels, two blue gourami, 5 rosy barbs and a bristlenosed plec. The barbs make great dither fish and are far less aggressive than Tiger barbs from what I have seen. I am still unsure about the Bristlenose, if i catch him eating the eggs/fry then I'll get rid of him. The FM and angelfish just leave each other alone.
oh, and fyi the tank is a 3' 65gallon. It is fine for now but could get crowded if the Angels pair off.
Any advice on the Bristlenose would be very welcome.
that is a great stocking and tank size! thanks for your inputshinypenny;1761208; said:
but yeah, definitely remove the pleco if you want eggs. They are active at night when the parents are sleeping, and suck up the eggs. I've had it happen before
That's what I was worried about but at the moment I have about 50-70 fry swimming around the tank. I guess the parents did a good job guarding, or I have a really dumb PlecoOnion01;1761519; said:that is a great stocking and tank size! thanks for your input
but yeah, definitely remove the pleco if you want eggs. They are active at night when the parents are sleeping, and suck up the eggs. I've had it happen before
As a side note It's been really interesting to see them breed in a taller tank (it's 24" tall) as it really seems to restrict the aggression. The FM's tend to guard the substrate around the fry, and leave the other fish overhead as long as they stay in the top 1/3 of the tank. In longer thinner tanks with similar volume (like a standard 55) I've noticed more that fish get trapped in too close to the fry/eggs and that initiates the aggressive behavior by the parents. I guess the compromise is for me that I cannot get any other cichlids (convicts, Kribs, keyholes) due to my shorter length, there's not enough gravel for two pairs to mate in harmony IMPO. I wasn't counting the Angels because they wouldn't really fight for floor space.
I'm setting up a 20 gallon bare bottom growout tank at the moment for the fry. Does anyone have any thoughts on when is best to remove the fry from the parents. At the moment they are too small IMO, and I would risk damaging them with a net. I could scoop them with something more solid, but that is a bit cumbersome. How long until I could comfortably use a fine net? They have only been free swimming for about 3 or 4 days at this point.
I'd like to leave them for as long as possible to watch them interact with the parents, and I don't want to induce another spawning yet, I'd rather give the parents time to recover.
Anyway, I will try and post pictures, but my 4 year old digital camera is a little but past it's best, and (more importantly) I'm a pretty bad photographer.
Any input, suggestions or advice are more than welcome
Great post thanks. Have you kept firemouths outside all yr long ? I ask as notice your in Miami (I am also) .Onion01;1337258; said:I was asked by a few people on how to breed firemouths, and have decided to post up my experience and techniques. Many of you may not need it, as they are not the most difficult cichlids (pretty easy actually) to breed. They follow the ol' cichlid breeding guidlines. However, since some people may not know what those are, I am posting this up anyways.
1) Get the fish: seems pretty easy, right? well, not really. it is sort of hard to sex these guys, especially since they breed at such a small size (mine started at under 3". I have found that males show more blue metallic colors on their gillplate and around the faces, although this is not always the case. Also, their dorsal fins tend to end in streamers, instead of just ending. You might just want to buy around 5 or 6 and see which ones pair up
2) What tank?: the smallest tank i have ever done it in (or they did it in) was a 20g tall. Mine have also bred in a 29g long, and most successfully in a 75g long. It seems like they lay more eggs and more of the eggs survive as the tank gets bigger. In all of the cases they have spawned in a little terra cotta vase, with part of the entrance covered by rocks (I guess they feel like they are a little more private, who knows).
3) Water + Food: The first time I spawned firemouths was during an ich infection. I still stand by the theory that they figured they weren't gonna make it, so decided they had nothing to lose. Well, they didn't die, and found themselves with 400 kids. Whoops. Anyways, what happened during the ich infection was that I bumped up the tank temperature a couple of degrees, from 77F to around 82-83F. I noticed they dancing around each other, with the occasional foreplay (rubbing, light nipping). At the time I thought they were two males fighting, but BOY WAS I WRONG! Once it got through my head they were a pair, I waited. And waited. And waited and waited and waited and nothing happened. It was then that I learned about conditioning foods. I stuffed them with bloodworms and the occasional feeder shrimp and PRESTO...they laid eggs.
4) Eggs and care: The eggs looked like a bunch of bunch of brown spots at first, but slowly a few turned white. These are dead eggs, and the parents diligently picked them off. One parent would take turns fanning water over the eggs with their pectoral fins, while the other viciously defended their pot (terra cotta, remember
5) Baby time: After 4-5 days, i went to check the eggs, only to find them gone! I was a little TO'd because I thought the parents had eaten them. However, I noticed the parents still defending the pot. Instead of defending the inside, they were defending the sides. The parents had cleared out sand next to the pot, and dug a pit under it. The babies had actually hatched, and the parents moved them to a safe location. They did this many times over the next couple of days, until finally after around a week or so of being hatched, some of the fry were free swimming.
6) Now what?: by this point, I suggest removing the fry (even earlier if you want) and placing them in their own private tank. Using a turkey baster is the best removal method, IMO.
***important! if you move the fry AND the parents to a new tank at this point, the parents are very likely to eat the fry (I learned the hard way
Of course, letting the parents have a tank all to their own is IMO the best. That way you can fully appreciate a parent cichlid caring for it's young. Remember also to either use a sponge filter or a cover on your filter uptake. Powerheads are notorious baby eaters. Barebottom tanks are also recommended, as they are easy to clean. Keep their water clean to get healthy, fast growing babies.
7) Last points: for now anyways, since I am sleepy. Once the yolk sacks were gone, I fed the fry crushed/powdered flake food and have never had problems. You can try other fry food, or newly hatched brine shrimp, but flake always worked fine for me. Let those babies grow, and be aware that a large number of the eggs develop into fry, and many of the fry grow up well. Have a plan, since you will soon be full of fry in your tanks.
I hope you guys will breed some of these great cichlids as well. Any questions are welcome, and I will try to answer to the best of my abilities. Thank you
I am thinking of a 300 gallon pond (prefabricated pvc) for firemouths-blue acara- yellow labs . Pond would be in yard
best way for fry that small is with a turkey baster IMO. Minimum size for net would be closing in on one inch. Not because they would get caught, but because their fins might. Plus they are sort of fragile at that size. The tall tank idea is really good! My FM's never cared for any fish above them, and my biggest tank was only 18" tall.shinypenny;1773619; said:As a side note It's been really interesting to see them breed in a taller tank (it's 24" tall) as it really seems to restrict the aggression. The FM's tend to guard the substrate around the fry, and leave the other fish overhead as long as they stay in the top 1/3 of the tank. In longer thinner tanks with similar volume (like a standard 55) I've noticed more that fish get trapped in too close to the fry/eggs and that initiates the aggressive behavior by the parents. I guess the compromise is for me that I cannot get any other cichlids (convicts, Kribs, keyholes) due to my shorter length, there's not enough gravel for two pairs to mate in harmony IMPO. I wasn't counting the Angels because they wouldn't really fight for floor space.
I'm setting up a 20 gallon bare bottom growout tank at the moment for the fry. Does anyone have any thoughts on when is best to remove the fry from the parents. At the moment they are too small IMO, and I would risk damaging them with a net. I could scoop them with something more solid, but that is a bit cumbersome. How long until I could comfortably use a fine net? They have only been free swimming for about 3 or 4 days at this point.
I'd like to leave them for as long as possible to watch them interact with the parents, and I don't want to induce another spawning yet, I'd rather give the parents time to recover.
Anyway, I will try and post pictures, but my 4 year old digital camera is a little but past it's best, and (more importantly) I'm a pretty bad photographer.
Any input, suggestions or advice are more than welcome
thanks, you definitely shouldCammo X;1820093; said:
I've never kept FM's outside. Keeping them in a pond would allow for many pairs, but I would worry that you would never see them breed, and you can't really appreciate them from above since they are pretty small. If I were you, I would stick to larger species for a pond, and (since FM can breed comfortably in relatively small tanks) stick to aquariums for FM's. If you do keep them outside, make sure your pond is relatively well insulated. You don't want the temperature below 68-70F for too long. Great to hear you are interested in these underrated, but awesome fish!Louie;1820850; said:
