Yesterday, my wife and I made a little day trip to an aquarium store in Kalispell Montana. I’ve been wanting to try breeding a fish more suited to our water parameters and try something I haven’t kept before. Both of these fish had been at the store for awhile in their own tanks in different rooms in the store. I noticed the female had her egg tube down and the storekeeper told me that she had done it a few times since she had been there and that the male was known to be quite aggressive. So I got them both and decided to try introducing them together in their new tank under close monitoring as it would be new territory to both of them. At this time the male’s reproductive organ was not showing but the female’s was. I watched them for hours and they liplocked and swam around with each other and I was ok with the aggression that was going on. Later in the evening, she seemed a bit tired though and was resting in the corners. When she would do this, the male changed his behavior up and would peck a bit on her sides. I was hoping she would go in to her cave. She didn’t. That kind of behavior was my cutoff point, so I went to plan B which probably should have been plan A in retrospect. I divided the aquarium, placing a plate under the divider to try and spawn them this way. Though there are no holes in the divider, there is space beneath it. Less than 24 hrs later, the male’s organ is out. Here are some pics. Wish me luck!
