Red Spot Gobies spawned
https://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/...inogobius-rubromaculatus.734839/#post-8283101
https://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/...inogobius-rubromaculatus.734839/#post-8283101
Post your breeding projects
- Thread starter davo
- Start date
Looks good, they’ll probably be a mix of regular convicts, white convicts, short body convicts, and white shortbody convicts.
I recently purchased a group of 20 tank-bred Tropheus ikola. They had just become available at Bluechip Aquatics for $12 each, which is much lower than $20 from other online sources. That was an impulsive decision. I had to set up a 40-gallon breeder tank three days before my Tropheus arrive. The vendor fasts their fish for three days before shipping, which is a practice of many successful vendors to prepare their fish for delivery. I put a Seachem hang on the back filter with a filter pad from an established aquarium to seed the filter and tank with bacteria. I left the tank light on 24 hours a day to promote algae growth and had two long air stones for more oxygen gas exchange at the water's surface. An algae bloom can deplete dissolved oxygen in the water in the absence of light and especially when they are decaying. However, they consume ammonia and nitrite through photosynthesis, and surface algae provide food for the Tropheus. In addition, I placed several Holy Rocks with attached Anubias from a cycled tank. The bacteria from the rock, filter, tank surface, and water will aid to start the nitrogen cycle and the plants will help consume nitrates to produce oxygen. Plant cover also helps to reduce stress on the fish. To my surprise, the Tropheus I received were much larger than I had expected. I drip-acclimated them in covered buckets and covered the tank that I placed them in it to reduce stress. The light cycle was adjusted to eight hours a day. I took precautions by doing twice daily 10% water changes (dosed with Epson Salt) before feeding with Epson Salt soaked spirulina flakes in the mornings and soaked spirulina sinking tablets in the late afternoon. Studies have shown that Epsom Salt helps reduce pathogens in the digestive system. Four days after their arrival, a pair started breeding in the tank. The methods I used to reduce stress, provide an environment to allow the fish to acclimate, create and maintain proper water parameters, and a systematic approach was successful for these tank-bred Tropheus to thrive and breed. A week later, I placed ammonia-absorbing pads in the filter and added two large sponge filters to the tank. As the filter pads cleared up the free-floating algae bloom, the ammonia pads and sponge filters (seeded by placing gravel loaded with bacteria on top of them from an established tank) continued absorbing the toxins in the water. Every two weeks I will reduce the frequency of water changes for the bacteria to gradually flourish to an equilibrium that can handle the biomass in the aquarium. The caveat is that these methods work for me but may not work for everyone and for every species.
Tropheus are prone to having bloat. I feed Epsom Salt soaked spirulina flakes in the mornings as a proactive approach to preventing issues with pathogens and blocked intestines in the digestive system. I feed soaked sinking tablets in late afternoons or at night to help cure possible pathogens and intestinal blockage that may have been acquired during the course of the day. Between these feedings, I sparingly fed them spirulina flakes. In their natural environment, they graze throughout their day so frequent small-portion feedings are most suitable to help prevent intestinal blockage.
To vary their diet so they don't lack most of the nutrients they require, I feed them hair, blue-green, and black beard algae from other tanks. Once in a while, I included Daphnia and snails I deshell from ones that infest my other tanks. Tropheus do eat invertebrates as a source of protein that lives in the algae they consume in the wild. Some successful Tropheus breeders feed baby brine shrimp consistently. I believe in supplementing my Tropheuses diet with natural foods from my disease-free tanks. I put in their aquarium floating riccia which are loaded with hair and top-layered blue-green algae from my planted nano tanks. The Tropheus relish the algae in the meshes of ricci and tear them apart to pick off the algae. I return the "cleaned" ricci to the planted tanks. For me, it is the most effective method of getting rid of the algae from patches of ricci. I have algae-eating Amano shrimps, Cherry Shrimps, American Flagfish, Rainbow Gobby, Panda Loaches, Hillstream loaches, snails, and the proper amount of lighting, and I add plant nutrients to promote plant intake of the elements that they compete with algae to consume.
As a side note, about 24 years ago I focused on breeding wild-caught T. ilangi, T. ikola, T. duboisi, and T. brichardi 'fiery fry' (at the time this was a newly available variant with an exaggerated label). I know that wild-caught Tropheus are very sensitive to stress and die from less-than-ideal water parameters, however; tank-bred Tropheus are sometimes domesticated to the extent that they are able to adapt to less-than-ideal conditions.
Tropheus are prone to having bloat. I feed Epsom Salt soaked spirulina flakes in the mornings as a proactive approach to preventing issues with pathogens and blocked intestines in the digestive system. I feed soaked sinking tablets in late afternoons or at night to help cure possible pathogens and intestinal blockage that may have been acquired during the course of the day. Between these feedings, I sparingly fed them spirulina flakes. In their natural environment, they graze throughout their day so frequent small-portion feedings are most suitable to help prevent intestinal blockage.
To vary their diet so they don't lack most of the nutrients they require, I feed them hair, blue-green, and black beard algae from other tanks. Once in a while, I included Daphnia and snails I deshell from ones that infest my other tanks. Tropheus do eat invertebrates as a source of protein that lives in the algae they consume in the wild. Some successful Tropheus breeders feed baby brine shrimp consistently. I believe in supplementing my Tropheuses diet with natural foods from my disease-free tanks. I put in their aquarium floating riccia which are loaded with hair and top-layered blue-green algae from my planted nano tanks. The Tropheus relish the algae in the meshes of ricci and tear them apart to pick off the algae. I return the "cleaned" ricci to the planted tanks. For me, it is the most effective method of getting rid of the algae from patches of ricci. I have algae-eating Amano shrimps, Cherry Shrimps, American Flagfish, Rainbow Gobby, Panda Loaches, Hillstream loaches, snails, and the proper amount of lighting, and I add plant nutrients to promote plant intake of the elements that they compete with algae to consume.
As a side note, about 24 years ago I focused on breeding wild-caught T. ilangi, T. ikola, T. duboisi, and T. brichardi 'fiery fry' (at the time this was a newly available variant with an exaggerated label). I know that wild-caught Tropheus are very sensitive to stress and die from less-than-ideal water parameters, however; tank-bred Tropheus are sometimes domesticated to the extent that they are able to adapt to less-than-ideal conditions.
