Severum spawning

medusax2

Registered Member
Sep 25, 2005
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I was just reading the details under severum for mating. I have two gold severums. One is half the size of the other, which I thought the smaller one is a female & the larger one is male. According to the description listed the female has a spot located on it's dorsal fin (ours does not) but is laying eggs. This has happened now 5 times: the eggs are apparently not being fertilized by the male, because they keep turning white... Any advice??
 
sometimesfemales do pair of with eachother or they can neglect there first couple spawnings before they get the hang of it. My advice: get one of simalar size that you know is a male and he will select his mate add another female or 2 incasethe other realy is a male.
 
The best way to figure out who is who is to look at their heads. A male will have "squigly" pattern on his head. Females do not have that pattern. Here's the picture of my gold severum male:
P1010417.jpg

Not a good quality picture but you can see the pattern on his head.
Here's the picture of my torquiose severum female:
P1010447.jpg

My breeding pair of torquiose severums tried it 7 times before they figured out how to spawn and fertilize the eggs. Then it took them a few more times how to work together to keep the fry alive. Don't be discouraged. Eventially they will figure it out.
I also heard about cases when two females would pair up and even spawn. But let's hope it's not the case.
 
Try turning off tank filtration or pumps when the two are spawning to help relieve 'distractions'. I've heard of this working with new spawners.

Best of luck of otherwise. Severum's are my favorite fresh water fish because of their intelligence and personality. A few days ago on the National Geographic channel I saw a couple divers in the amazon marvel over a large male severum that was posing for the camera. The funny thing was they didn't know the name of it.
 
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Sexing severums outside of breeding is PURELY guess work. There are no methods that are accurate other than seeing the differences in the papila.

Your water could potentially be to blame, if it is hard, the eggs may not be fertilized. You could easily have two females, or an immature/infertile male.

The patterning on the head is genetic, not dimorphic. You CAN NOT sex severums based on the patterns on their heads or anywhere else.

Your best bet for getting a pair, is starting with 6 or so juvis, or adults, and let them pair off on their own. Once they spawn you can sex them, females have a larger more rounded papila, while males are shorter and come to a blunt point. If you have seen one lay eggs obviously that is a female, compare the papila of that one to the other, if they are different you have a male and female, if they are the same, you have the same sex.
 
can anyone post a picture of a female gold severum so I can compare it to the previous male that was posted, i'm thinking i have 2 males, but they are both small. is there anyway of knowing by the slope of their forehead. because the bigger fish has a slope similar to a blood parrot (the rd cross sev kind.) and the otherone has a nice clean slope like the one shown in the picture. So any suggestions, not to take away from the main topic of course. they aren't showing much aggression towards each other besides the normal territory nudges.

thanks :)
 
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