Crenicichla Regani Breeding Log

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Dread

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
May 6, 2007
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Happytown :)
Coming tonight! :) Pictures follow soon after that. :D This will be my third, with Convicts being the first, and M. ramirezi after that.
 
Alrighty, for the writeup:

I'll be using a 55g tank, decorated with large round stones, and a few plant species. Play sand is the substrate, Aquaclear 500, and one Hydro V sponge filter the tank. C02 is injected into the aquarium to keep pH around 6.3. About 50ppm hardness. Temp is about 78, will lower it and then raise it later on. Conductivity (a measure I've found to be extremely helpful in breeding!) is very low, and I keep it low. About 10mS.

Other fish include 6 Corydoras paleatus, 6 C. Pygmaeus, about 20 Hemigrammus rodwayi, 1 Ancistrus sp. (sp "3", I think), 2 Apistogramma sp. 'Pebas'.

A total of 6 Crenicichla regani (w/c from Rio Tapajos). There's 2 males, and 4 females. Hiding places plenty. There's about 7 Rock Caves, 2 half flowerpots, lots of single rocks with pits dug under them (by the fish themselves), and there's plenty of plant cover via about 10 different species of plants.

They're being fed on the following, alternativly, 3 times a day (pretty random picks each day):

Live:
Brine Shrimp
Daphnia
Mosquito Larvae
Cyclops on occasion

Frozen:
Brine Shrimp
Baby Brine Shrimp (they still love it)
Daphnia
Tubifex
Bloodworms
Mysis


I may consider adding peat to the filter, to reduce hardness even more. Picture should come sometime tonight, or tomorrow night at the latest. :)
 
Sounds good.....looking forward to seeing your progress.
 
Some pictures of the guys. I've posted pictures before of'em. I'm not good with a camera (a crap one, at that), so don't expect POTM material here. I wish.

Female:
log002uf4.jpg


Male front, male Apisto back
log003jy8.jpg


Right side of tank, fairly heavy oak leaf litter. Alot of the fish spend lots of time in these leaves:
log005bp2.jpg


Female showing off:
pikes010fd8.jpg


It's so hard to capture these fish in a picture. If you ever come across a tank of these fish, watch them for a second. They turn their colours on and off like a light switch, and their bars on their back can be a dark jet black to a metallic blue, and then gone in a flash. Their eyes turn from a dullish orange to a flaming blood red. When they're dead red, these guys look extremely vicious. This is the best picture I could get of two of females flaring at each other:
pikes044vp1.jpg


The only focused part of one picture was the tail, and it shows off their overall colour very well. It's almost like a rainbow, so here's an idea of their beauty when they get settled in and show their real colours:
tailas4.jpg


The way to sex these guys is by the dorsal fin. Males have no ocelli, while females can have between 1 and 4. The edging colour is determined by point of capture. Certain strains have a red edging, while others have yellow. Obviously, mine have yellow. These are from the Rio Tapajos. You can tell this strain apart from the rest because of the bar marking on their backs. These remain into maturity, while other strains do not.
 
where'd you get these guys at?
 
Fantastic Fins in Livonia. Great fish store.
 
Dread;1270939; said:
Fantastic Fins in Livonia. Great fish store.

I took Molly to priuss but haven't been anywhere else other than the petbarn in hartland, pet supplies in howell and the one if brighton, petco in brighton, and whatever that other one in brighton is.

priuss is by far the best I was just pissed that I got yelled at not to pet the birds even though they had 11,000 signs saying not to. Its not like I'm going to sue them when my dumbass gets attacked.
 
So far, nothing real yet. I think I have a real pair though, finally. One male has claimed a cave (half flowerpot) and lets only one female in. The others are chased off. The female also lets the male in. These two snip at others, but fairly between themselves. Infact, there's even the wagging motion back and forth between the two. Some people think it's to create a current to impress the mate, or show how strong they are. So, things are looking good. Here's some pictures I managed to shoot when I was watching:

good004ed6.jpg

good006mt3.jpg

good002tx1.jpg



And yeah, Preuss is a really nice place. The only downfall are their prices. I think it's up to like $13 for 3 Cardinal Tetras when I can score them for $1 each at some spots.
 
Nice looking fish, and I like the tank. Oak leaves? Havn't seen or heard of that in a tank before. What advantage is there to using them? Is it a ph control?
Any full tank pics?
 
GL
 
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