Another spawn today from my regular Joe and Jane for me to test to see if enough good food has passed through their systems.
The goal of any good hatchery is the continuation of good lines and with that, I've decided to focus more on my next F1 generations than the parents I have now. I've taken some losses of breeders the past few days which had nothing to do with me or the setup but more the actual fish themselves. The big male marble veil just got the snot beat out of him by the silver and he never recovered. I would look at him daily and he seemed to be getting over the attack. ( He was separated from the female but still in the breeder tank with a divider.) yesterday, I noticed one of his sides had a nice large area that had fungused so I moved him into a hospital tank and medicated him but he did not survive. The male 1/2 black from pair #2 came down with a blood disease. It's symptoms were similar to fish that have been known to have been exposed to leeches. I thought I had it under control but once again, the lack of availability to good quality meds left me with no good second choices. The last was the female Black Angel. I was convinced she was eggbound and for the past 3 weeks, I have been trying to relax her, used epsom salt on her, some antibiotics and still nothing. The past 3 days her tube seemed to be enlarging so I was hoping that it was a sign that she was getting ready to spawn finally. Today, she was dead in the tank with what appeared to be a prolapsed vent. I'm assuming it was from being eggbound as she was defecating while engorged. The last female Black had the same issues and never spawned for me either. Considering that these were sisters, it may have had to do something with the outcome.
So hopefully, I will get some positive results from these spawns so I know I can remix some of the pairs and expect some good results. I've already ordered the Cobalt foods suggested by PoppaRyno ( Thanks Poppa
) and hope to see some good results.
My last bit of info has to do with the Red Cap and her Koi mate. Keep in mind that both of these fish have had successful spawns with other partners . These 2 are not a good match at all.
On their first spawn, I only saw the end results and had no idea whether the male was given the chance to fertilize the eggs. By the way he was being treated, I could only assume No. The eggs all died and she eventually ate them all. That I saw. This next spawn I got to watch. HOLY CRAP!!!! What a mess this was. She would chase him from the slate then lay a row. He would chase her off then fertilize and fan. She would chase him off then eat the eggs then start the whole process again. I watched this for almost 45 minutes.
I finally decided to pull the slate with just 2 lines of eggs that I knew he fertilized and put another slate in the tank to try and keep the peace. This morning, I came in and found 3 more lines of eggs on the new slate so I pulled that one too. I just want to get some fry to see if they will carry on the red cap trait. It's obvious I need to split these guys up.
So here's some of the new lineup:
Once I get some tanks cleaned, I am going to put the single 1/2 Black male in with the female from 1/2 Black pair #2, the Koi male back with his old mate (who never spawned with the new male), the Gold Marble male from the Blushing pair ( brother to the one the Red Cap spawned with first) in with the red cap and I am going to set up a tank with the now single black male and some of the Blacks from the Zebra lace - Black pair and the Females from his own spawns with the Silver. I'm also going to set up a tank with the silver female and let her choose a mate from the class of wounded warriors that have proven themselves fertile. At this point however, I'm more interested in the next generations pairing off.
Here is the batch of my Angels latest spawn Andy. They just moved them to this leaf today. They're wiggling like crazy! One question though, why do they move the Wigglers? They've been wiggling for 1 1/2 days now so I'm guessing about another 2-3 days and they should be free swimming!
Zebra Lace female. She has successfully spawned with 4 different males. 2 Blacks, 1- Half Black and 1 Zebra Lace veil. Her first was a Black male. Her last, the other black male. What's interesting is that she beat up the other 2 males even tho she would spawn with them yet she hasn't touched the Black males. There were many months and many spawns in between the 2 black males so why hasn't she continued this harsh treatment of her males? We surmize that it's because of their color. Apparently, it's something she prefers.
