It’s Raining Cats and Fry
by Bob Berdoulay
From Gravel Gossip, Diamond State Aquarium Society, Delaware City
Aquarticles
You know the old saying, “It never rains but it pours.” Boy! Sometimes it
really does. It’s August 2003 and if you live in the Delaware Valley you know it has
been raining forever (not really, but quite a bit). I have been phasing myself slowly out
of the fish breeding part of the hobby, but do keep a few favorite Corydoras catfish to
fool around with. At a couple of this Spring’s DSAS fish auctions I could not resist
buying two types of tetras, Diamonds and Flames. I placed them in my 55-gallon community
tank that had some Corys and some Black tetras. I usually quarantine my new purchases but
these came from Joe Kaznica who, I know, raises clean fish. I thought about separating out
the species later to attempt breeding, but to tell the truth I didn’t remember my own
plans. I think forgetting is becoming a habit as I get older.
Three months later (August 2003) while feeding the fish I noticed that the Diamond
tetras were spewing eggs all over the tank. The next day it was the Flame tetras' turn. I
couldn’t believe it, this tank was in no way near the conditions that the books say
favor tetra spawning. I decided that if the fish were this eager I would give them a
chance to breed in conditions where I might be able to raise the fry. I set up two
10-gallon tanks with water from the community tank and lots of Java moss in each. Each
tank had a piece of plastic needlepoint mat fitted to the size of the tank and slightly
raised off the bottom plus a well aged sponge filter.
I placed the plumpest females in the tanks first and fed them heavily with brine shrimp
nauplii and flake food . A week later they looked gravid so I added the males. The next
day the Diamonds displayed and showed some signs of a courtship routine and spawned two
days later. The Flames didn’t seem interested in each other and there wasn‘t any
sign that they intended to spawn. But, lo and behold, the Black tetras in the community
tank were spawning like crazy. Now I know this doesn’t seem like a big deal, since
Blacks are supposed to be one of the easiest tetras to spawn, but my Blacks were over four
years old. I transferred a female and two males to a separate 10-gallon tank set up the
same way as I had done for the other tetras. Within 15 minutes they were spawning in the
Java moss. I really was interested to see if the spawn from these aged Blacks would be
fertile. When the fish stopped spawning I removed the parents from the Diamond and Black
tanks.
Within twenty-four hours both the Diamonds and the Blacks hatched out. The fry were
very small and thin, they looked to be all eyes and yolk sacs. I wasn’t worried about
feeding since they had their yolk sacs and the Java moss and sponge filter were loaded
with microorganisms. By day six most of the fry were free swimming and searching among the
moss for food. I began feeding them Brine Shrimp Direct’s “Golden Pearls”
(size 20-80 microns) mixed first in some tank water. Two days later I started them on
brine shrimp nauplii. Both types of tetra fry gobbled them like candy and you could see
their bellies swell with the orange coloration of the nauplii.
The day after I started the tetra fry on nauplii my long-finned zebra danios spawned,
two female guppies I had put in one of my show tanks to break it in threw about 35 young,
my Rams spawned, and both Panda and Bronze cats were depositing eggs all over their tanks.
I don’t know if this summer’s weather is causing my fish to act like
they’re on an aphrodisiac, but I have never had so many spawns occur at the same time
especially now since I’m trying to limit the number of tanks I have running. I am now
growing out fry from Diamond tetras (Moenkhausia pittieri), Black tetras (Gymnocorymbus
ternetzi), Zebra danios (Brachydanio rerio), Guppies (Poecilia
reticulata), Panda cats (Corydoras panda), and Bronze cats (Corydoras
aeneus). The Flame tetras (Hyphessobrycon flammeus) never did spawn again, at
least at this writing, and the Rams (Microgeophagus ramirezi), I believe, ate
their eggs. These I will keep trying to get to spawn and let you know if I am successful.
I will also write a more detailed article on each of the fish that have spawned.
For those of you who might want to know the parameters of my tank water, except for the
Rams' tank, all my tanks are kept at 76-78 °F, with a pH of 7.0, and have soft water; all
are well planted and I use loads of Java moss in the spawning tanks.
PS - Since writing the original article I have had Corydoras hatatus spawn,
and the Rams spawned again. To add to it my Anubias barteri plant flowered. And I
thought May was the merry, merry month.
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