Re: Anyone's commerc. bred rams raised their young?

["wingko yung" <yungfamily@sympatico.ca>]

Thanks for the post!  It has given me several new ideas to try...and I was
running out after trying stuff on 20 something spawns!  Anyway, I hope other
ppl found it helpful too...Thanks again, Sam

                                    ----- Original Message -----
From: <MikeFHill@aol.com>
To: <apisto@majordomo.pobox.com>
Sent: Friday, April 07, 2000 1:33 AM
Subject: Re: Anyone's commerc. bred rams raised their young?


> I will apologize in advance for running on a bit, but I hope something I
> offer here may be of some use to someone.
>
> I've had mixed success alowing my commercially raised rams to rear their
> young. I lucked into some very nice juvenile yellow-strain rams several
> months ago. When they matured I had one pair and a couple lonely males.
Later
> I found a lovely German blue female at another shop, giving me two pairs.
I
> had very good luck with the mixed pair. They spawned readilly, and both
> parents were extremely attentive to their offspring. A few days after the
fry
> became free swimming, Dad would chase off Mom and take over brood care
> altogether. My all-yellow pair, however, have failed completely. They'll
> stick with the brood through the wiggler stage, but eat the fry as soon as
> they become free swimming. Sadly, my successful male lost an eye in a
fight
> about two months ago. He is now well enough to spawn again -- a bit
awkwardly
> -- but the broods have disappeared after a couple days. I  have a couple
> thoughts, based on those early successes:
>
> --The productive broods were in a bare-bottom tank shared with a pair of
> breeding angelfish. Glazed tiles had been leaned against the inside glass
as
> a spawning medium for the angels. The rams seemed to love the lean-to
> structures the tiles created. Soon after spawning, they would move eggs or
> wigglers under one of the lean-tos, and later move them to another
location
> -- under another tile -- almost daily (the angels were removed by then).
> Tiles have not been present  for the unsuccessful broods, and  I now
wonder
> if the the structures might have had a stabilizing effect on the parents.
I
> plan to test the theory with both pairs.
>
> --I've also wondered if the tendency to eat offspring doesn't have
something
> to with stress caused by aggression between parents (these are very
> aggressive fish around spawning time -- they terrorized my much larger,
but
> absolutely pitiful, angels). Perhaps it would be sufficient to remove just
> one parent soon after spawning -- another theory to test.
>
> --Finally, I'm very anxious to see if any of my mixed-strain juveniles
turn
> out to be such good parents. For that matter, I'm anxious to see what
color
> strain they are.
>
> I wonder if anyone has had similar observations or thoughts.
>
> --MikeH.
>
>
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