Interesting Severum breeding behavior

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
T

Titania

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
May 7, 2008
513
1
0
Massachusetts
I have 3 green severums (2M, 1F) in my 210 gal tank. The female spawned with her usual spawning partner last night on a flowerpot on the right side of the tank. I watched them spawn for a while. They made sure that the other male was well out of their territory. The female NEVER has spawned with the bachelor male. He tries like all get out to woo her, but she'll have none of it.

This morning, I checked on the tank, and the spawning pair were hanging out near the flowerpot on the LEFT side of the tank. The bachelor male has run off the parents and was tending their eggs on his own. Whenever he wasn't defending the eggs, he was carefully watching them and fanning them.

Weird, huh? I'll be very curious if they're there tonight. The mated pair has never actually managed to hatch their eggs. They always eat them after a day or two.
 
So, as of this morning, the bachelor male is still caring for the eggs. A few have fungused, which he hasn't removed from the batch, but the rest look A-OK. It was a pretty large spawn.
 
Day 3 and my bachelor male is still tending the eggs. He doesn't seem to realize he should be removing the fungused eggs from the batch, so the fungus is spreading. Probably half of the eggs are impacted at this point. I'm not sure many will survive.

Still, this is far further along than the spawning parents have ever managed...
 
Day 4 - Fry hatched last night. The bachelor male is still being an amazingly good father, considering the circumstances of his "parenthood". He was very much not happy with me checking in on things this morning. He's more aggressively defending his territory now that the fry have hatched.
 
fishluvr;3791106; said:
any pics?
Click to expand...

I'm an awful fish photographer, but I'll see what I can do.

As of this morning, there are probably about 100 fry. They're not quite free-swimming yet, but their yolk sacs are almost gone. "Dad" is keeping up his constant vigil.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
MonsterFishKeepers.com
Top Bottom