Have You Heard about the Procatopus abberans?
By Rene Jez
First published in Tank Talk, Canberra and District Aquarium Society, Australia
Aquarticles
You haven't? I had not, not until Andy Wattam rang a few months ago. With a familiar
voice he said "Hi mate, I've got some rare killies from Melbourne. The last three
pairs in Australia, and not a person with time to breed them. Fish are getting old and
will be lost to the hobby.”
Andy did not even remember the name of the fish, although he said that the fish were
peaceful. At first I intended to decline the 'gift,' - not having a free tank. Then I
realised I could do a little reorganisation, ending up with a spare 15 litre tank. In an
hour I had the "last fish in Australia." They did not look much like killies,
but were quite pretty. The males are approximately 75 mm long, metallic blue body with
fins rather square in shape. Red spots are on the fins and the tail. Females are less
bluish, more silver, plain, and approx. 50 mm long. One was badly deformed. This was to my
thinking the sign of an old fish, therefore useless for breeding. I was thinking that I
could put her out of her misery but fortunately, I postponed the act for sometime later.
Receiving the fish with very little information, I consulted the CDAS library copy of
Axelrod's Atlas of Fishes. There are pictures and descriptions of this genus and species
but the description is very sketchy. The following is written there:
"The larger type (of killies) as Procatopus and Lamprichthys are
colourful and will spawn in the aquarium but they tend to be short lived and not very
hardy. Many or most Lampeyes place their eggs in crevices such as floating pieces of
natural cork or behind airline tubing in the darkest corner of the tank. Identification is
almost impossible for specimens and they are poorly covered in available aquarium
literature."
That was all. There were some good pictures showing the difference within Procatopus
genus. It consisted of Procatopus gracilis, P.similis, P abberans and P.nototaemia
species. Both Procatopus and Lamprichthys are called lampeyes in the
aquarium hobby. Lamprichthys live only in Lake Tanganyika. My limited knowledge
was enriched by Andy's information that this fish sprays eggs into rock cavities. He also
brought a nice looking slotted PVC pipe which he said was used successfully by the
original owner.
Adding to the description of this fish (recently learnt), the Procatopus
family is distributed through West Africa to Southern, Central and East Africa. Procatopus
abberrans is from Cameroon and Nigeria, where they live in streams of the rainforests
and savannahs, in water 40 to 150 dH hardness, pH 6-7 and a temperature 20-24C. My guess
was that water with less hardness and a temperature up to 28-30C, considering the
proximity of the Equator, would also be ok.
I placed the six fish in a tank (300 x 200 x 400 high) where just an airstone was the
only luxury (no filter). The fish settled down quite well and were fed live food. They
adore daphnia and white worms. The cyclops are not hunted and are the last food eaten. I
am sure that tubifex, mosquito larvae and bloodworms would also be taken very keenly.
As I have mentioned, I had received the special spawning slotted plastic pipe. It has a
removable core wrapped in filter wool mattress. I love these gadgets where the inventor
shows a flair of imagination. It was a very creative toy and a real "beauty" but
(I found out later) was totally useless. Equipped with a total lack of knowledge and
without any lead how to spawn the fish, it was disheartening for me. I started to see the
whole exercise as a waste of time. Stuck with the fish occupying a tank, I started to
check the slotted pipe for eggs of unknown size and numbers. With no discoveries, my
enthusiasm plummeted down.
Then I found a male fish dead. It did not appear that the males were fighting, but
there was a clearly dominant male that was occasionally chasing the others. Now with only
two males, the dominant fish started to be more aggressive and I had to take one male out.
To complicate things, one female, the better one, showed development of ulcers and died.
It is known that killies stay more healthy in harder water (say 80-160 ppm,) but spawning
and development of eggs is better in softer water. This is the pattern of the dry and wet
seasons in the tropic where killies live.
To prevent the crank male chasing the remaining two females, I placed a few larger
bunches of Indonesian fem to provide hiding places for the fish. The fern was old bunches
with massive stalks and a lot of black roots. After the loss of a female I decided to
maintain a higher hardness in the tank. I prepared a 200 mm long part of a ladies'
stocking filled with shell grit. To keep the grit inside, I tied a knot at each end and
then hung this piece of art on the side wall of the tank.
Passing weeks were increasing my frustration, despite checking the slotted pipe
regularly - no eggs. Then the sunny summer changed into storms and rainy days. I felt that
this could be my chance because this type of weather increases the mating activity of all
fish. The killies were not any exception and the male started 'hanky-panky' with a female.
I tried to look for released eggs. The fish behaved similar to corydoras cats
with some control of the egg deposition. The myth of 'spraying' eggs was gone. But I could
not find any eggs. There were so many simulated laying of eggs by the pair interrupted by
wrong approach or wrong place or something else - still the pipe had no eggs.
But sheer chance, while looking for attached eggs to the leaves of the fem, I spotted
some transparent debris within the twisted fem stalk deep in between the hairy roots. I
pushed a small stick into that area and the first egg came out. It was round, pale yellow
approximately 1.5 mm in diameter, and not particularly sticky - which was the key
discovery. Using the magnifying lens, I examined many other possible locations and found
two more eggs. I reduced the fern bunches to the best three. In a few days I had collected
more than 10 eggs. Under normal conditions the female deposits 1 to 3 eggs each day, but
this will continue for many weeks.
The collected eggs (by fingers) were placed into a plastic container (150 x 150 x 100
high) with water 50 mm deep (this depth of water is not what I started with - explained
later on). The water specs were pH 7.5, hardness 16ppm and temperature fluctuating between
22'C to 28'C. The container was in a shaded (not dark) area. Methylene blue was used as an
anti-bacteria and fungus protection - the colour of the water in the container was light
blue.
After a week the eggs showed the development of eyes as two black spots, and later the
dark body of the fry was clearly visible. The eggs were about 60-70% fertile with the
development to hatching of the fry 35 to 40 days. The fry are dark, 4-5mm long. From the
first day they swim horizontally - the yolk reserve is minimal - and on the second day
after hatching they must be fed. Some fry did have difficulties swimming horizontally,
probably due to a slow development of the air bladder function. The hatching is
continuous, daily 2-5 fry (from two females). This required a number of small tanks to
keep similar size fry - born within a week to 10 days of each other. Each tank only had a
slow airstone.
To my great surprise, the fry are not keen to eat small live cyclops - they preferred
microworms (I do not cultivate brine shrimps or other food). The microworms were sinking
relatively fast to the bottom of the fry tanks and presenting a bit of a problem as the
young fry swim at the water surface and would not descend. It required frequent swirling
of the water to get the microworm to the fry - very irritating. After some time I had the
idea to lower the water level - this would bring the fry closer to microworms. I reduced
the depth to 50mm and won. The young fry would pick up food without any assistance. The
feeding should be careful - do not overfeed.
With a depth of only 50mm, the fry only had 1-2 litres of water. This required careful
changes of the same source water - very important. The fry grow relatively slowly. I tried
to increase the water hardness from 16ppm to 80ppm. However I could not observe any
difference with the fry, therefore I returned back to my tap water (16ppm).
As the parent fish did not eat the eggs, I reduced the egg collection to once every 2-3
days. I was puzzled how the female got the eggs into the very obstructed hiding spots. I
tried some experiments with slotted mangrove wood, but these offerings were not successful
I was now finding less and less eggs - I thought that is was a resting period in the egg
production.
By chance, during a regular cleaning of the tank, I handled the stocking with the shell
grit. 1 felt a typical rolling movements of a fish egg on my fingers. I realised that the
fish had often been making "false" spawning around the suspended stocking bag. I
examined the stocking's knots and to my surprise 1 found tens of eggs placed in gaps and
overhangs of the knots - at both ends of a vertically hanging bag. The eggs matched the
stocking colour (light beige) and were nearly invisible. The puzzle was solved. It all now
became routine work - the number of fry were increasing, ten, twenty, fifty... it was
easy.
Some may consider this article to be a bit long winded, [I don't ... editor]
with too many minute details and descriptions of fish not easily obtained. I have done
this to show the fascinating difficulties facing a hobbyist trying to achieve a goal
without already having the applicable knowledge. It is very satisfying to crack problems
of any magnitude. Some may say "A fish - so what". But life is full of
challenges and any of them being successfully accomplished brings the ultimate
satisfaction. [Others may also say "A job well done"] .
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