Finally, JDs have laid Eggs again!

[Dragonis95]

Do you think I can risk it to take away the divider, now that the pair has established and spawned?
The pair is pretty aggressive against everything...
Is there a risk for the young fish or even the adult female?
Will the young fish eat the eggs when they come close enough?

 

[YankeeJack]

Remind us, what size tank is this? What else is in the tank?

With a pair of Jacks with wigglers, I would consider anything in the tank in danger.

Yes, smaller fish will eat eggs and wigglers if they get to them. And yes, the parents will kill any other fish around if they have the chance.

 

[Dragonis95]

hey, sure I will

tank has 65 gallons, other fish are only two plecos who sit mostly under the wood and eat the rest of food the youngsters leave.

I guess it will be best to give the old female away, since there are no fullgrown males available here... I have seen what kind of agressive and sturdy these fish can become when someone gets too close, and it doesn´t matter if it is a younger one or older one or even my hand. Territorial pissings at it´s best ;-)
Since already on topic, the youngsters start to flare gills and behave like they are sooo big and strong already... just so cute...

In the end I will keep only one pair for sure. If it will be the actual pair or one out of my actual batch, we will see. I will choose the best looking and best growing pair.

Since my tank is not the biggest I will exstinguish the next fry (hatches within the next days) as soon as possible, because I can´t let the big youngsters get near the new pair while they have eggs. I will propably take out the stone with all the eggs on and clean it with hot water, that might sound brutal but it is better than having 300 fry in a tank only big enough for one pair and their youngsters... They will breed again very soon, since it is warm and food is great.

Pics of the big youngsters are coming tomorrow

 

[Dragonis95]

In the meantime I have planted some Elodea to make the tank look more like a real biotope.
The youngsters have shown themselves very calmed down so I took some pics.
The last one is the whole tank.

 

[jhook]

Those are some good looking Jacks. Great job on raising them up. You should get a few very good lookers from that bunch if they are anything to go by when they are this young.

 

[Dragonis95]

Thank you!

I hope they continue growing so fast and having these bright colouration.
I will keep one pair of them of course.

 

[Dragonis95]

long time no post since nothing special happened,

but I think I have found the first female of the batch.
Do you see the slightly blue lowest gill part, there are signs of colouring up like a female would. The markings below the eyes are also typical for a female and way too intense for a male, who would only have dots.

Here it is:


I hope to have found the first male too, but I am definitely not sure on that. I don´t see that many speckles around the lower gill part and the eye markings are also a little more defined than those of the "female":


What do you think?
Females? Males? Nothing to be sure about since coloured up completely?

 

[Niki_up]

long time no post since nothing special happened,

but I think I have found the first female of the batch.
Do you see the slightly blue lowest gill part, there are signs of colouring up like a female would. The markings below the eyes are also typical for a female and way too intense for a male, who would only have dots.

Here it is:
View attachment 1330924

I hope to have found the first male too, but I am definitely not sure on that. I don´t see that many speckles around the lower gill part and the eye markings are also a little more defined than those of the "female":
View attachment 1330926

What do you think?
Females? Males? Nothing to be sure about since coloured up completely?

I agree with your analysis l, definitely female on top, “male” could go either way still.

 

[Dragonis95]

I am glad to hear I could be right with this. Maybe it is an all female batch, who knows? But then I will grow out some of the new batch of the wildcaughts and find out some males of these guys.
The sweeties don't grow that fast at the moment, but I remember that phase of the last ones. I still feed them good and hope they show some better colouration when they are showing their real gender.

 

[Dragonis95]

I was able to take some close up shots of some of the youngsters.

Here is what I believe them to be, just looking at the eye markings.
No sure sign visible in behaviour, the dominant fish is a female.

Propably smaller female:


small male or female, very big markings:


propably a male: and another male, but not sure...