Frank's Aquarium

[jeff bollbach]

Frank sells the best fish! The Sewellia I got from him have spawned big time. I turned on the light this morning and was surprised by many very small but quick fry. They are in a ten with one half sand and the other pebbles. They soon dissapeared from the sand front of the tank as it seems the light caused this. This tank has only a sponge filter and many plants. I have read what I can on the net as to strategies and am not sure what I am going to do, so any suggestions are welcome. Brian Ahmer had success with just leaving them alone, while Eric Bodrock separated the fish.

[waterfaller1]

Wow that is great..congrats! I want to have a tank for them some day. Can you get some pics and post of your set up? How do you supply the flow they need, powerheads? What do they eat?
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Smile~=) Carole

[waterfaller1]

[jeff bollbach]

No powerheads just one sponge bubbling pretty hard. Iam afraid a pic wouldn't tell much-lots of algae on the glass. The first guy to start selling these guys tank bred did it that way. Sometimes recreating the exact conditions of the wild is not needed. years ago I saw Sallie Boggs give a talk on breeding loaches-I think they were weather loaches. Her tanks were completely overgrown with bba with lots of mulm. Yet she was able to breed very difficult species like this. Some of my best luck came from 'dirty" tanks as well.

[franksaquarium]

This is great news! Congrats!!
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Frank M. Greco (customerservice@franksaquarium.com)

[jeff bollbach]

Thanks, Frank. An update-
That night I looked in the tank with a flashlight an hour after lights out and was shocked at the CLOUD of fry that was visible. Hundreds were clearly visible. The next night I siphoned out a few dozen into a 2 1/2 gal to hedge my bets. Over the next week I witnessed quite a bit of attrition in both tanks. I was feeding "sprayed" shrimp, a product I got from ken's fish that is the size of APR. I use this with good results on my small fry[bow's, bettas etc]. I am worried that I am not getting them enough food, but I certainly don't want to foul the water.
Next shock, 9 days after the first spawns appearance I get another bloom. I use that word cause it seems just like a daphnia bloom. One day just a few, the next a cloud!That was 36 hours ago or so and I siphoned out another 2 1/2. These guys I will try to feed differentlly, if anyone has any ideas? I will first try just adding sponge filter scrunge, I think Eric Bodrock tried that with success.

[jeff bollbach]

Another update. The first tank in which i isolated fry has shown no fry. Upon very close examination of the tank I saw many copepods. Apparently these little freakin monsters ate all the loaches in the tank. How the hell do I deal with this?

[mikev]

By putting some adult hillstreams in, perhaps?

Hillstreams eat copepods and as everyone says don't eat their own fry.


(PS. Very sorry to hear this...hopefully the ones you left in the adult tank will do better...)

[mikev]

PS. Slightly offtopic.... but take a look at this movie clip (xvid) . I've been waiting for this for two years....

[jeff bollbach]

Mike-
I can't get that to play-what is it? Hey, you gonna make it out here for those Pagwi or what?
jeff

ps- I read somewhere that copepods don't like current so next time I'll run a small HOB. There are still plenty of fry in the parent tank and I saw one the other day that is clearly larger, a survivor of the first spawn no doubt.

[mikev]

Movie: it is a Cheni (one of those xlarge ones I told you about) digging a spawning pit. I've been waiting for it happening for a loooong time.

if you want to see how he does it, you probably need to download XVID codec off the internet, then Windows Media Player will take it.

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Copepods & current : probably not. I know that Copepods are present in the Cheni tank despite a lot of current and many loaches that hunt them....

What exactly is wrong with leaving the fry with parents? Or -- I probably am missing something --- what prevents you from using a tank cloned only from the parent tank or even from scratch? It should take some time for a large copepod population to be established...

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Oh, of course I would love to see your setup (if I'm still invited).

[jeff bollbach]

I want to spread them out just to increase production. The first attempt left me with a one gallon tank filled with copepods. Apparently they can reproduce fast enough to overcome the loaches.

[jeff bollbach]

Another update. I have been seeing numbers of larger fry and a good mix of sizes including brand new fry for a while now. I decided that there were just too many fish in the parent tank and made a clone tank next to it. I just moved the parents in tonight and was pleased to see more fry coming out. Not that they are afraid of the parents but it seems the commotion of the parents eating and sparring caused some to lean towards their shy side. If the adults reproduce in the new tank I will just clone more tanks until I have a Sewellia factory

[apistomaster]

Seems like using a much larger well established tank with plenty of Java Moss might work. I would consider using a 40 gal breeder style tank with only the breeders present.
That should allow more fry to be supported. Feeding some microworms may be a good idea since they survive so long and tend to accumulate along the bottom.
Most copepods that just "appear' in aquariums don't seem to predate small fry however if you collect daphnia from ponds the chances of introducing some of the predatory copepods is likely higher.

Your loach fry would be comparable in size to what other more common tropical fish like Tetra fry? Much smaller than that and they would initially only be able to eat whatever existing small "bugs" found in infusoria or green water cultures. In fact, green water may be just what they need to get off to a stronger start. They seem to be a an omnivore with a strong preference for algae.
A little aquarium plant fertilizer in strongly lit containers of aquarium water will usually develop good, dense green water cultures.
This is probably what I would try if I wanted to figure out how to raise them for sale.
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Larry Waybright
Hobbyist breeder. My main interests are wild Discus, breeding rare Brazilian Hypancistrus spp, L260, L333, L46 Zebra and Peckoltia sp L134 plecos. Also SA. Dwarf Cichlids, Apistogramma.
Fly fishing for Trout.

[waterfaller1]

Great info Larry.
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Smile~=) Carole