Heroina isonycterina F1 kids

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ryansmith83

ryansmith83

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May 2, 2008
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My wild Heroina never stop spawning. They're like convicts! I've been battling water issues so most of the fry end up with fin defects, but I managed to save about 14 that are perfect and on their way to becoming really nice F1s. These guys are just over a month old at approximately 1/2" - 3/4" and you can see they are already developing the red lined dorsals and spangles that their parents showed as juveniles. The blue didn't come in on mine until they hit maybe 3 - 4" so it's still a bit early yet. Notice how in the video that they're already just as feisty and pushy as the adult fish. They constantly chase and attack each other.

This batch will probably go to dogofwar Matt when it warms up so I mostly just wanted him to see the little guys. :)

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[video=youtube_share;rNe5LZw2VrY]http://youtu.be/rNe5LZw2VrY[/video]
 
Nice work. Love these guys and I'm looking forward to the day you breeders get their availability to a point where a nonbreeding community keeper can get them.
 
bbortko said:
Nice work. Love these guys and I'm looking forward to the day you breeders get their availability to a point where a nonbreeding community keeper can get them.
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They are starting to show up as F1s now. Decker is spawning them and Jeff Rapps has a pair that he's selling F1s from. They breed like crazy so it shouldn't be hard to keep them around as long as a few people have pairs.

Andrewtfw said:
They look like they are coming along nicely. How brutal are their attacks on each other as they grow? At the current size, they look mostly harmless.
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It depends on a lot of things. During spawning they are brutal. I've had to remove a bunch of unpaired adults from my Heroina tank because pairs with fry are so rough. They will shred fins and take off scales, and pretty much beat the other fish up into the corners of the tank or hiding behind filters. I also had to start upgrading tank sizes when the wilds hit around 3" because they were really beating each other up. I've found it best to keep small groups of them (4 or so) in very large tanks where they each have their own territory but plenty of room to chase and fight. I put two 4" Heroina in my 210 gallon -- they've selected the center of the tank as a dividing line with one on the right side and the other on the left. When they interact at feeding time there's a lot of gill flaring and tussling, then it's back to their respective sides. They are holding their own with 10"+ Heros sp. Atabapo.

I also don't think it's a good idea to keep single Heroina. I moved one that was getting beat up into a 55 gallon with some Geophagus parnaibae, and then suddenly noticed all my Geos had become top-dwellers. After sitting and watching the tank for a while, it became apparent that the Heroina was chasing/attacking all the geos near the bottom level of the tank and forcing them to hang out near the surface. One Heroina managed to spook 8 geos. Needless to say, she's not sharing a tank with them anymore.
 
I know I'm pulling up an old thread, but I was fortunate enough to pick up some of these little guys earlier this year. They have come along very nicely. I received a dozen juvies from Ryan in April. I still have all 12 going well, ranging from around 2" up to 4" (assuming this is the dominant male). Ryan - any good advice on determining gender of these guys?
 
At sexual maturity the female will develop the bright blue iridescent stripe in her dorsal. The males do have some blue tinge in the fins but it's not as bright or large as the females. The males also develop the black speckling which the females don't seem to carry. Otherwise, males do outgrow the females and there's a large difference in size for a while. My males were all 4 - 5" while the females were 2 - 3", but as they've matured the females have caught up and now they're all between 4 - 6" fish.

I'd love to see some pictures if you have them. I got to see some of the F1s I sent to Larry in Georgia. I didn't actually keep any F1 for myself so I've only got the wild group still.
 
Thanks for the info. I need to thin these out a bit, so I'd like to do my best to keep a well balanced group. I'll try to get some pictures up soon. We are supposed to get some snow tomorrow, so I may have some spare time around the house if they send us home from work.

Do you think that the pointed versus rounded dorsal is any indicator? I can see a definite point on the largest 2 or 3, assuming they are males.
 
The females are a bit like Cryptoheros -- they get pointed fins, too, but they tend to be overall smaller than males. Are any of them showing black freckling or blue in the dorsals? Those are the two biggest giveaways, IMO. The females will flash a blue dorsal when chasing/spawning/courting and the midlateral and caudal peduncle spots will also go from black to an iridescent blue. Here's a video of a pair -- the female has the blue and the male has the black freckles on his flanks:

[video=youtube;L18HC85TP08]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L18HC85TP08[/video]

These are both characteristics that showed up fairly early on, I just didn't realize they were related to gender until the fish started spawning. At 3 - 4" when the fish all got mixed together in a 55 and started chasing and fighting, I noticed the blue on what would become the females.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2V6fJi2Qw2Y

Notice that the blotches on the males stay black and all the females turn blue when fighting.
 
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