L. CURVICEPS

["Antonio Alcántara Peyres" <antoine@serconet.com>]

Hello All:

I've bred L. curviceps and realized some curious behaviours I'd like to
share and some questions about it:

    They spawned in a communitary tank, 100 l., pH 6 and 4º gH, about
28ºC, a well established tank with Java moss, Java fern, Anubias,
Salvinias, wood, rocks, etc. Spawning place was a wood, eggs hatched in
2 days and free swimming fry in three or four days (hundreds of them!),
I removed the other fishes, but 3 brachidanio rerio left in tank (I
couldn't catch them), as "dither fish". Feeding fry with BBS since
second free swimming day, the first one they ate some "infusoria" should
be in the tank.

    The B. Rerio attacks the fry, until parents realized, so they become
fish food instead of dither fish, they were dead and eaten in less than
24 h., I thought Curviceps were a peaceful fish.

    I've seen some "white dots" in father's body, and fry's seems to eat
of, could this be something like discus?. Right now, about 3 weeks from
free swimming the dots have disappeared.

    Parents are eating sand snails, the big ones, I think they try to
catch them when snail is out, as they can't break the shell.

    Yesterday I decided to take the fry's (they are quite big and with a
bit of colour already) to other tank, for I want to put the fishes I
removed first, but I had two problems, first, I couldn't catch every fry
(there are still a lot, more than 200), and in second place, they have
spawned again, in the same place, so I left the fry's I hadn't caught
and took of.

    This morning I've seen the fry's I've left in the tank swimming
round the eggs, and eating the unfertilized ones, their parents allowed
them. Any idea? There is (I think) food enough for the fry's, so I don't
think it would be any kind of supplement food like in Chana orientalis,
besides, there are a lot of (apparently) fertilized eggs.

Any comment would be of interest.






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