Re: Slightly Off Topic Question

[henshawm@ruf.rice.edu (Mike Henshaw)]

>Nanachromis Transvestitus, 2 males 1 female. These fish seem to be courting
>but nothing substantial is happening. My local store keeper has told me he
>will buy ever fish I can breed from these with cold hard cash, since he
>takes enough of my money I would love to get cash instead of credit from
>him. So as much info as possible please!!
>
>My water quality(s) are pH 6-6.5, 3 deg KH, zero Ammonia, Nitrates, I feed
>the fish small amounts several times a day with baby or adult brine shrimp,
>frozen bloodworm, frozen/live daphnia and pellets/flake.

Your pH is way too high to induce the tranvestitus to breed.  I have read
that they prefer a pH around 4.5, but mine spawned regularly at a pH in the
mid 5's.  I ended up with a decent mixture of males and females but it
seems that the sex ratio might be slightly female skewed.  Two other
factors I found useful were filtering over peat and feeding small portions
of chopped up live black worms every other day.  I would only begin feeding
the black worms when the female seemed to be full of eggs though, and then
only for a week or so.  Basically, I used them as a sort of "breeding
trigger".

Mike Henshaw
- ------------------------------------
Dept. of Ecology & Evol. Biology, MS-170
Rice University
135 Anderson Biology Lab
6100 Main
Houston, TX. 77005-1892

Ph: (713)527-4919
fax: (713)285-5232
e-mail: henshawm@ruf.rice.edu