Ummm.... I think my Oscars just spawned

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Hello neighbor in San Ramon! I'm actually in Danville so it's a little drive to Aq Concepts, but it's a good store. :)

K.... done a little more reading... Mummy fish should eat up the infertile/fungus-y eggs if she's left alone with them --
--they have a low low survival rate in the wild, 10% maybe, and yes, parents may eat the fry after doing all the work for 10 days...
(just like bettas... I also breed Crowntails and am part of the local betta club)

so.... I can take the fry OUT and raise them on BBS till they're big enough to go to shops in 4-7 weeks .... or let nature take its course.

I'm kinda voting for nature here and survival of the fittest.... this spawn looks like about 200 eggs but as I don't have another tank to separate the pair (!) and if I do artificially remove/raise the eggs/fry (besides getting my hand bit off by Papa!! in the process) they will spawn again in 2-6 weeks.

So..... I'll just see what happens... as Mama matures further (she is most likely about 1 yr/2yrs old at 8-10") she can lay 2-3,000 eggs. Oh my!!

Apparently the HARD PART to it is getting a spawning, willing pair..... they are decent parents until fry are free-swimming - which is why I was so surprised to see EGGS!!

After free-swimming -- sounds like the hard part is keeping sufficient tiny food in the large aquarium (if I don't take them out) so they can find and eat it. Hmmmmmmm.

I might just tx'fr them to a 10-gal except, my daughter is doing a betta breeding project for Science Fair and all my 10-g's are full up. LOL AND then I'll just get MORE in 2-6 WEEKS..... eh!

I'm sitting here w/the laptop watching them.... Mama is "fanning" the eggs and Papa is standing by protecting her.

Articles I've read now say they go off their feed before spawning - HA - these haven't!! they ate gobs last night and again tonight.

It looks like.... I happened to do a few things accidentally right:

* Mature Pair from LFS
* Water temp at 80-84 (My Redtail likes it warmer, & pouts when it's cooler, so I keep a single 200W heater in the sump that just cooks it out
* Slate rock to lay eggs on
* Feed natural fish fillets, prawns, etc like they would eat in the wild and in plentiful amounts

....I just knew they liked flat rocks :)

Well anyway I'll keep y'all posted.

It's possible they're not at all fertilized - will know in 48-72 hours if they change color to tan and hatch into a wriggly thingy stuck to the rock. If not ... Mama should eat them.... & they should protect their spawn until free-swimming. Generally the female will not lay any eggs, unless there is a male she likes in the tank.

I have the odd tiny guppy or three up there that don't get eaten by anybody... so.... who knows.
???
 
frillifish said:
Oh very sad when the Oscars die!! we have lost a couple before too.... filter breakdown & illness or - the most recent was about 4" and I thought THOUGHT THOUGHT he was big enough to put in with the red tail.... but I think... uh he got eaten.

SURE if I have any survivors would be happy to ship. Keep in touch with me and I wouldn't charge much if anything but shipping, and I'll need to figure out if they need a heat pack etc.

Wish me luck!
Linda
Click to expand...

That sounds great and I saw You wanted to know what to do to the fry I would take the rock they spawned on and put in a 10 or 20 gallon barebottom tank with no deco other than some plants and ALOT of air has to go in so do what I do with my baby fish and just get an aerator split line where one aerator powers two I'll post a pic of mine but get one they are great and keep the water on high heat (82 farenheit) and feed everytime you get a chance that's how I usually spawn all different fish species but never oscars and I wouldn't put anything under 5" in with any adults especially with the rtc you better watch out because one day your oscars might be missing  so just do those steps and make sure there is at least one hiding spot what i do is drop a stalk of anachris in there it is a great aerator and great hideout
Best of luck
-andrew



Sent from my iPhone using MonsterAquariaNetwork app
 
Congrats on ur spawn! my poor oscars are so close but something seems to be just not right yet. the picture u posted was hard to tell but i believe i saw all white eggs meaning they are not fertile. this is normal for a first time dad. he sometimes might not get his rolse at first. my agnelfish boy misses half his target lol. good news is they will try again soon. eggs that are good should turn tanned colored after 24-48 hours. bad eggs will turn white as soon as 24 hours. thanks to your post though youve answered something for me if oscars will spawn on a flat surface. i was concerned that they didnt like the tile i have in my tank as substrate because they are desperatly trying to dig a pit. good luck!
 
Thanks everyone!
I think it will be easier to remove fry STAT than my rtc. LOL
And he HAS eaten a 4" Oscar before ... yup.

First... seeing if anything hatched. I think they might have 6?? wiggler babies on the rock -- and the rest went to fungus. I've been waterchanging but didn't want to disrupt their first nest... so waiting till they are "done" guarding to siphon out the bad eggs.

Here is a short vid from yesterday but it's still inconclusive IMO if anything HATCHED... even if these don't make it ... I would like to know if they are sterile or not.


As to tile - maybe it's too slick? I have slate rock in there on top of smaller pebbles ... they might like a terra cotta dish, the type you use under a terra cotta pot for plants (nice and flat!) better -- try that --!!

[video=youtube_share;A1ClbVV2G2o]http://youtu.be/A1ClbVV2G2o[/video]

This vid may or may not show anything... other than a shot of both parents & the fact most of the eggs are fungusy. :(
 
It's really a muddy video - sorry :( sometimes my cam on phone is crystal clear (Android HTC) and sometimes, not.
Looking in there today it SEEMS like I see eggshells - opened eggs with nothing inside.... I made sure they could dig pits in rock substrate last night - had anemone shells all over -- that got me attacked pretty good, LOL although I kept my hand/net/tools as far from the nest as possible...

I think I will just keep seeing how it goes. I have livebearers in my sump under the big guys, as I said, so, very easy to txfr fry "downstairs" once parents stop guarding/attacking. Then the Oscar fry can eat the guppy & platy fry to heart's content and clear them out :) until they are big enough to eat the adults - then I will use a grow-out tank. But... don't HATE ME for saying this... If I have 100's of fry all the time here... I am really OK with them being a live food source for Fabio the RTC.... as there is just not room .... and the LFS will only take so many Oscar babies at a time ya know.... and then, will they get to live more useful lives than becoming food? If some idiot puts one in a 30-gal forever --which is what happened to the big guy (Daddy red/black in the vid - a HUGE 15") Phoebe. If that makes any sense to some listening... I would rather they have decent lives as "feeders" in my relatively clean and sized correctly & cared for and loved tank.... than just produce thousands of them over time to sell off to who-knows-what-outcome, for money.

That said - should be clear I really don't WANT to keep or try to sell/home 100 - 3,000 Oscars every.... few weeks!!

...so NO.... I'm not taking the rock out to hatch on their own.... keeping a few for trade to the LFS is fine with me, but this pair is still young (under 5 yrs old for sure) & I don't want to separate them -- and -- they will probably spawn all the time with the way I'm keeping the tank (keeping it cooler makes RTC pout big-time) and -- nowhere else to put the RTC ... unless I sell him.

BTW...

Anyone looking for an 18-24" RTC? because at the rate he eats WHOLE fish fillets, he's going to outgrow this tank relatively soon anyway .... and I don't have space for a bigger tank. I daydream of 300 - 1000 gal tanks but.... house just won't hold up the weight. This tank is on the only spot we have over cement that will for sure hold its weight - which is - right inside the front door! and it's like, Hello FISH!! whenever we greet people :)

Re: my RTC I want to find him a good home, if I get a good price for him that's handy, I know his market value at this size, but mostly concerned about his new home. He's been a dear - but if I'd known how MONSTER he was going to get, I wouldn't have taken him from the LFS in the 1st place. But we love him!

Linda
 
Might have some luck in the market place for finding a bigger home for your RTC. I know whenever I can get a 1500 gallon pond the first thing I'm getting for it is an RTC.
 
Another thing re: Fabio my RTC, he leaves small feeders alone - doesn't even try - and I think prefers the fish fillets/prawns with shells on.

So.... before we rescued these Oscars... I had a tank full of 30 red minnows he just wouldn't eat. But, one day my juvie white koi went missing.... at 6" long too! But I can put a little crowd of guppies up there and he'd leave them mostly alone too. (Too much work?? dunno!) Until the Oscars arrived... they solved that problem quite quickly :)

The yo yo loach, I guess, is just too plain fast and the convict cichlid is too plain MEAN to get eaten.
And I guess he's keeping the feeder goldie Cleo as a pet?? or until she's big enough? (she/he is a good 4-5" already) but doesn't eat her.

But then he DID eat a juvie Oscar I THOUGHT would get along and not get eaten as he wasn't eating other fish that size.... but nope. That was sad. He was in there a day or two... and vanished. O_o
So....
we only rescued these 3 full-grown ones after that. They hang out with him back in his favorite cave a lot. Pre-spawning anyway.
:)
 
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