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calichai said:
Chameleon whiptails catfish? Wow...I keep missing the chance to get those.

Great collection and nice photos.


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Thanks. I waited two years to finally get my chameleons. Five months after i received them they spawned. Unfortunately the male was not very good at it and most of the eggs were left scattered in the sand. He did carry a few eggs for a few days but they must have gone bad or he ate them because they were gone after a few days. The eggs that were scattered in the sand, I scooped up and tried to hatch artificially but they fungused within 2 days.Im hoping with some practice he gets the hang of it. He are a couple of videos of them spawning and a picture of the male with his tiny clutch of eggs.



Pseudohemiodon apithanos spawning: https://youtu.be/31qsoU6sw5s

Pseudohemiodon apithanos spawning: https://youtu.be/yVLmzPDDjpk
 
CodOnMyRod said:
Thanks. I waited two years to finally get my chameleons. Five months after i received them they spawned. Unfortunately the male was not very good at it and most of the eggs were left scattered in the sand. He did carry a few eggs for a few days but they must have gone bad or he ate them because they were gone after a few days. The eggs that were scattered in the sand, I scooped up and tried to hatch artificially but they fungused within 2 days.Im hoping with some practice he gets the hang of it. He are a couple of videos of them spawning and a picture of the male with his tiny clutch of eggs.



Pseudohemiodon apithanos spawning: https://youtu.be/31qsoU6sw5s

Pseudohemiodon apithanos spawning: https://youtu.be/yVLmzPDDjpk
Click to expand...

Amazing! Good luck with the next spawn. Still waiting on some of these, very nice collection.


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UnstoppableJayD said:
Nice collection... SO what was the hardest species to get to spawn? Any tips or tricks for people trying?
Click to expand...

Thanks Jay. Most of the hypans and ancistrus are not that difficult to breed when provided with optimal conditions. Some fish will spawn with no problems, others need some manipulation. Water quality and diet are the 2 most important factors in my opinion. After conditioning the fish with good food some may need to be triggered into spawning by duplicating a dry/rain cycle. Timing these cycles around the weather and upcoming low pressure systems has definitely increased the amount of breeding activity in my groups. Sometimes getting them to spawn is the easy part. Hatching and raising the fry can prove to be a task for certain species. Some blackwater species need the low ph and low tds for the eggs to hatch properly, others can hatch and be raised in regular tap water. After hatching the fry my best advice is to feed, feed and feed some more. With the heavy feedings daily large water changes are necessary, but you will see a huge difference in the growth rate in fry raised this way. Eventually you get to know the preferences of your groups and what works for each one. Also thinking outside the box sometimes is all thats needed to get that stubborn group to finally spawn.
 
Here are a few videos showing how quickly hypancistrus fry develop in their first week. This particular clutch was kicked out of the cave by the male were were hatched in an egg tumbler. These are Hypancistrus contradens.

First video shows the fry just starting to emerge from the eggs. If you look closely you can see their tiny tails wagging slightly.

H. Contradens just starting to hatch: http://youtu.be/JIhnHPp35eo

This next video shows the fry at 1 day old. They still have no pigment and have a large yolk sac.

H. contradens wrigglers: https://youtu.be/i0W88MxAaq4

By day 4 they are starting to get some pigment and have absorbed some of the yolk sac.

H. contrdens fry: https://youtu.be/pbXg4tvWgr4

Day 8, you can see they have their base color and some pattern on them already. They have absorbed most of the yolk sac and are just about ready to be released into a fry tank and start feeding.

Hypancistrus contradens fry: https://youtu.be/EJSY2KP-rMk

This is what the look like at about 3 months old.



 
Thank you for taking the time to share those videos w/description. Very cool to the see the process. I have a couple of pleco caves in my community tank and I have gobs of plecos in there but only the bushy nose are reproducing. I'm not really trying to encourage it other than the caves as it's just regular temps, feedings & cleanings. I have have a dwarf cat that cruises around eating up all the fry so the fact that I end up with any is impressive IMO. One of these days I'm going to set up a second tank strictly to raise some little babies. Watching your videos gives me a little more motivation and you've got some seriously cool fish there. Good job.
 
Great pics and awesome collection. What is the 3rd pic ?

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