Cren. Puntulata success:-)

["Colin Gorton" <mr_apisto@graffiti.net>]

Hi folks,
On Saturday evening I got home to find a brood of Crenicara Puntulata swimming around. I was especially pleased because I?d started to think that they?d never do anything, especially having read of other people?s experiences as well as what there is about them in Mayland and Bork. 
My experience has been completely different from that in M+B, the female  developed a very strong continuous lateral line and continues to show this now. They bred in a 130 gallon (500litre) tank with various other fish (I?m using the 130 primarily as a grow-out tank) which is heavily planted at one end but with very little cover at the other except for dense floating plants (Eichornia Crassipes and Pistia Stratiotes.)  The tank has MH lighting, CO2 injection, substrate heating with water at 0º for both KH and GH.
I was particularly interested to note that she chose the unplanted end to spawn, but having watched her behaviour it seems that she chose that end because she can see any potential threat coming from a long way off. I never actually saw the spawn though I did notice that both the male (who was previously female) had changed colour (yellow ventral fins and a blue sheen to the rest of the body and the lateral line became very indistinct. Having seen these changes I spent quite a long time looking for signs of eggs but couldn?t see them and thought it must be another false alarm. She must have worked quite hard at protecting the eggs as there are a couple of Corys in the tank as well as Pencil fish, Ap. Steindachneri fry N. Taenia fry, M. Altispinosus as well as various Otos. I don?t suppose that any are particularly notorious egg stealers (except the Corys) but the number of fish in there must have made her job quite tough. So far about 30 fry have survived.
The female is doing most of the guard duties but the male is also being more aggressive towards the other females. He does come into the mother?s territory and isn?t attacked unless he comes VERY close to the fry. In fact, in most instances I would have said that behaviour is very similar to that of Apistos (other than being an substrate spawner): the female moves her fry around quite regularly and protects the young, in addition she cleans an area of detritus before moving the young to a new site. Most of the time the young are quite active but when they?re not, mum sort of ?piles them up? into a mound. The fry are quite a strange ?bent comet? shape, with a very obvious head and tail and nothing else very visible, a very different shape from the parents, more like the shape you?d expect from a Biotoecus or Dicrossus. 
I?m going to be away from home for a few days and debating whether to leave all the fry in their current tank or whether to transfer them, does anybody have any suggestions?

As I've said before, I don't seem to have problems with the "difficult" ones, but can never get the "easy" ones to breed<:-).
-- 
_______________________________________________
Get your free email from http://www.graffiti.net

Powered by Outblaze


-------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is the apistogramma mailing list, apisto@listbox.com.
For instructions on how to subscribe or unsubscribe or get help,
email apisto-request@listbox.com. apisto-digest@listbox.com also available.
Web archives at http://lists.thekrib.com/apisto