toddnbecka
06-20-2010, 12:46 AM
Saturday morning I stripped down the 45 to net out an outbound young pair of cutteri. When I picked up the last piece of mopani wood and tried to shake the sand off (the fish spit it all over everything) I belatedly realized the "sand" was actually eggs, looks like well over 100.
This is the 3rd spawn of the norte's (4 pairs) in the same tank with 3 (now 2) pairs of cutteri. One pair of cutteri have several dozen nicely-growing fry, now several weeks old, while the Gymnogeophagus fry disappear about the same day they become free-swimming.
I tossed a 6"+ Macana zebra knife fish into the tank earlier this week, hoping it will take down the cutteri fry soon. The parents have been a little too effective at protecting their fry from the other cichlids, though I think the little Akysis catfish have snatched some after dark.
I moved 100 1"+ cutteri fry into the 40 with the Carapo knife several weeks ago. He's been working on reducing their numbers, but they're meatier than the endler's and aren't disappearing very quickly. There are still around 75+ fry remaining in the 29 with their parents, and I have a large brood of oblongum fry (~200+) coming along in the other 29. Fortunately, the oblongum spawned several weeks later, and the fry don't grow as fast as the cutteri. Some will be moved into a 55 for growout soon, the rest will be feeders for the zebra knife.
Momma Gymno is the angry one in the back, facing the camera:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v628/toddnbecka/fishroom/P1040371.jpg
The zebra knife is semi-visible on the right side, taking advantage of the only remaining cover in the tank:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v628/toddnbecka/fishroom/P1040368.jpg
Momma fish was pretty pissed at me for disturbing everything, and went after my hand a couple times when I was putting the other pieces of wood back into place. I'd raise some of the fry if I had any tankspace available, but I'm overloaded already.
This is the 3rd spawn of the norte's (4 pairs) in the same tank with 3 (now 2) pairs of cutteri. One pair of cutteri have several dozen nicely-growing fry, now several weeks old, while the Gymnogeophagus fry disappear about the same day they become free-swimming.
I tossed a 6"+ Macana zebra knife fish into the tank earlier this week, hoping it will take down the cutteri fry soon. The parents have been a little too effective at protecting their fry from the other cichlids, though I think the little Akysis catfish have snatched some after dark.
I moved 100 1"+ cutteri fry into the 40 with the Carapo knife several weeks ago. He's been working on reducing their numbers, but they're meatier than the endler's and aren't disappearing very quickly. There are still around 75+ fry remaining in the 29 with their parents, and I have a large brood of oblongum fry (~200+) coming along in the other 29. Fortunately, the oblongum spawned several weeks later, and the fry don't grow as fast as the cutteri. Some will be moved into a 55 for growout soon, the rest will be feeders for the zebra knife.
Momma Gymno is the angry one in the back, facing the camera:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v628/toddnbecka/fishroom/P1040371.jpg
The zebra knife is semi-visible on the right side, taking advantage of the only remaining cover in the tank:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v628/toddnbecka/fishroom/P1040368.jpg
Momma fish was pretty pissed at me for disturbing everything, and went after my hand a couple times when I was putting the other pieces of wood back into place. I'd raise some of the fry if I had any tankspace available, but I'm overloaded already.