Snooks Have Spawned !!!

[SnookTown]

Hi everyone. First post and its all good news.
I have 5 snooks all around 7'-8'. Pretty sure I have 2 males and 3 females.
Anyway 2 of them paired up in my community tank and I had to move all other occupants to a 6x18x18 I had laying around. In the original tank, a 5x18x18, I had a pair of Jack Dempseys, pair of Convicts, 5 snooks and an 8' pleco.
When they paired up they took over 2 thirds of the tank. So after moving the other fish to their new tank, the pair of snooks took 7 days of cleaning and picking the site and then finally laid. Plenty of eggs too. Wouldn't like to guess how many. Covered the whole side of the flower pot though.
So here's some bad pictures. Didn't want to upset them too much by being in the room with the flash going all the time.
Anyone out there with experience in breeding these guys? How long till free swimming and feeding requirements etc?

On with the pics...

 

[Rare_Cichlids]

WELCOME to MFK!!!!! great snook pair

 

[Modest_Man]

Very nice pair! I wish I could find the normal morph here in the US. My #1 fish to find right now.

The eggs will hatch in about 48-72 hours, and the fry will become free swimming about 48-72 hours after that. It depends on the water temperature.

Don't feed till after they're free swimming, then feed small quantities of fry food (crushed flake, baby brine shrimp, etc) several times (about 5) daily.

 

[SnookTown]

WELCOME to MFK!!!!! great snook pair

Thanks for the welcome

Very nice pair! I wish I could find the normal morph here in the US. My #1 fish to find right now.

The eggs will hatch in about 48-72 hours, and the fry will become free swimming about 48-72 hours after that. It depends on the water temperature.

Don't feed till after they're free swimming, then feed small quantities of fry food (crushed flake, baby brine shrimp, etc) several times (about 5) daily.

Thank you for the information. I have the temperature set at 26.5 degrees to induce spawning for the dempseys and haven't changed it back. Must work for snooks too
Day 2 today and 3 eggs have turned white. I have a little 2 footer ready to go with some fry. How many should I syphon out and how many do you leave in the tank with the parents? Don't want them to hurt each other more then they have. Can't wait to see that fry cloud

 

[Wolf3101]

We lost 2 clutches of eggs to our plecos with our Red bay snooks. We,ve been looking for the green (normal) variaty as well.

 

[ewurm]

Nice clutch of eggs! Welcome to MFK!

 

[SnookTown]

Thanks ewurm

Here's some pics I took while they were courting. You can see the male has a smaller spikier tube while the female has a longer fuller tube. They flared up at each other alot and rubbed against each other as well. The male would occassionally give her a few tail whips if she started swimming away. After about 5 days he must of tried to beat her into submission as she had a bit of bark off her nose.

Day 3 and the eggs haven't turned white so fingers crossed. Should hatch tonight

On with the pics...

 

[Liam]

Nice snooks you've got there.

 

[SnookTown]

Thanks Pixy Blood

Here's a few pics of the group before I had to move them...

 

[SnookTown]

UPDATE

Had to take the male out as he was eating the eggs and beating up his Mrs. The eggs now have little black dots in them that you can kinda make out in the pics. As you can see from the first pics they have had a feast of caviar over the last few days
Bit of fungus on 4 eggs but I can't get anything in the tank to get them out. She tends to attack anything including the hand that feeds.
So hopefully by the end of the weekend I should be posting pics of free swimming fry...if she doesn't eat them all.