Rasbora False Spawning

[nakotronic]

So I have had my tank up for a few months and two/three of my rasboras went through what looked like spawning. They turned upside-down and rubbed on the undersides of leaves for about an hour. I have not seen any eggs, or fry for that matter. so my question is was this a false breeding? could I have just missed the eggs after breeding(are they that small?)? Any ideas?

 

[Fishfur]

What species of rasbora ? So far as I know, the rasboras are egg scatterers. They usually spawn on the substrate or low down anyway. These fish eat their own eggs as well as fry, so even if they laid some eggs, they may well have eaten them.

I'm not aware of any rasbora that performs any cleaning behaviours before they deposit eggs either. I'm not sure what they might have been doing rubbing on the leaves.. Angelfish and other cichlids do indeed clean a spawning site, but I don't believe any rasboras do this.

 

[nakotronic]

they are harlequin rasboras... they are egg scatterers, but lay the eggs on the undersides of leaves. but I saw no eggs. Even during the act I didn't see a single one.

 

[Fishfur]

My bad. If I'd realized they were harlequins, I'd have known they used leaves to spawn on. This is quite different from most rasboras, who are not nearly as picky about where they put their eggs. They don't clean leaves, but they do swim beneath them upside down and rub on them, and if the female is gravid, she would usually lay up to 12 eggs at a time, with the male fertilizing them after. Typically 100 or so eggs, but can be up to 300.

They prefer acidic water and the plants they most prefer are crypts. What are the water parameters like and what plants were they interested in ?

 

[Andy Sager]

It's rather unusual for Tetras or Rasboras to "practice" spawning so you may not have seen the eggs but they were there. They may have laid them under leaves when you weren't looking. That said, it's also possible that the other fish ate them before you saw them.
Next time, you might want to separate out pairs for spawning which will reduce the problems caused by the other fish in the tank.

Hope this helps

 

[nakotronic]

sorry for not specifying...She was inverting under every plant in the tank. Wisterias, anacharis, and temple plant were the favored. but even during the spawning I didnt see any eggs. All of the fish I have in the tank are egg eaters, so at this point I know that they are toast, but just so that I know for the next time, are they microscopically small? I know that they are tough to breed in the home tank, so I of course want to breed them at least once.Thanks for the help by the way!