How to get Farlowellas in the mood ;)

[bekateen]

Amazing! Good luck!

[Mol_PMB]

Thanks
29 of the 35 eggs remain unhatched and are still being guarded by the father. They look very 'full' though so I'll expect the rest will hatch soon. I couldn't see any hatched twiglets this morning - hopefully just hiding.
Now for the hard bit - trying to keep them alive!


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[jp11biod]

Twiglets! Copyright that! My farlowella's laid eggs yesterday so will be using advice gleaned at the Catfish Convention. Mine had spawned before but the fry need to graze continually in order to survive.

[Mol_PMB]

Twiglets! Copyright that! My farlowella's laid eggs yesterday so will be using advice gleaned at the Catfish Convention. Mine had spawned before but the fry need to graze continually in order to survive.

Thanks
I'll do my best to provide them with stuff to graze on. Any advice you can pass on would be most welcome!
Best of luck with yours as well.

[jp11biod]

the advice given to me was to put the fry in their own small tank with a lot of hornwort or similar plant, scatter your food of choice throughout the tank and change the water 90% every day-- the key is to put the food right in their face -- I will try with spirulina powder

JS

[Mol_PMB]

Thanks my problem is that in 2 weeks time I go away for 10 days, and there's no one who can do daily 'complex' fish care for me. So I think I'm best off leaving this batch in the existing mature tank, and do my best to provide food for them while I'm at home.
Hopefully the parents will breed again some time when I am in a better position to raise the fry.


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[Mol_PMB]

I think one more egg has hatched; the remainder not yet.

However, I can still only see one twiglet, but it's more active and mobile, and although all these pics are on the same leaf I have seen it move around elsewhere

[bekateen]

Thanks my problem is that in 2 weeks time I go away for 10 days, and there's no one who can do daily 'complex' fish care for me. So I think I'm best off leaving this batch in the existing mature tank, and do my best to provide food for them while I'm at home.

Would you consider giving some away?

It sounds like you expect the "twiglets" to die while you're away on travel. If you're near a local high school, maybe you could talk to the school's biology/science teacher. They might be willing to take some of the twiglets just before you leave and turn their care into a project for their students. The kids can learn a little about these fish, their behaviors, development and diet, and about how to take care of aquarium fish. Best case scenario - a lot of learning and the twiglets survive. Worst case scenario - the twiglets die but the kids still learn about the fish.

I don't know - it sounds like these twiglets will be difficult to raise, even for an experienced person like yourself; if so, then the local high school project might be a bad idea. But if you did take this path, it would probably be wise to discuss with the teacher the need to emphasize to the students the true magnitude of the challenge, and warn them up front of the likely outcome. That way, if the twiglets die, the students aren't so traumatized, and if the twiglets survive, then the kids can really appreciate the significance of their achievement.

Conversely, if you really think the twiglets might survive in the parents' tank while you're gone, then by all means keep them. Because if they do survive your trip, you will undoubtedly be amazed and overjoyed to find them scooting about when you return.

[Mol_PMB]

Thanks for the idea. I'll ask around.

For the record, the remaining 20-odd eggs hatched last night and I now have quite a lot of twiglets around the tank. Although I have offered a range of 'grazing' foods, none of them seem interested at the moment. A lot of them are resting on leaves in my forest of hydrocotyle leucocephela so hopefully they are finding some sustenance there.
And I've seen a tubby Mum and Dad together on the glass, so maybe they will try again?



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[jp11biod]

My farlowella eggs were eaten by some dastardly fish. Dad kept all the tetras away before so it may be some young L-340 in the tank or a small L-75. All the other fish were the same occupants before when the farlowella eggs hatched in that tank. That's life in the hobby!

[Mol_PMB]

I didn't suffer egg predation but I worry that my Dicrossus are eating the fry.


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[Mol_PMB]

This is the biggest twiglet I've seen so far - about 13mm long.

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[Mol_PMB]

Awwwww....

It's Daddy Twig's job to look after the eggs, but here's a pic of Mummy twig with one of her babies this evening.

To be honest, I don't think many babies have survived, but clearly at least one so far. And Mummy Twig looks like she might be preparing another batch

[apistomaster]

I think you will have better fry survival rates if you start them in a small well aerated tank with water less than 6 inches deep.
A 5 gal tank is more than enough for the first months. Earthworm sticks have worked better than any vegetarian diet. This food contains all the algae in the form of Spirulina they need at first.
The fry can not be easily handled without harming them.
Once you can tell when they are due to hatch use about a 1/2" diameter siphon and a razor blade together. Slide the ready to hatch eggs off the glass with the razor blade while catching them with the siphon. It is usual for these eggs to hatch as they are going through the siphon. Chasing free swimming fry down and catching them with a net will usually injure them fatally.
I'd like to see you successfully raise some broods. Best of success to you.

[Mol_PMB]

Thanks I had certainly underestimated how hard it would be to get the fry to eat - I offered all sorts of things both veggie and meaty and they just weren't interested. I suspect there was also some predation by the Dicrossus.

I'm going to be better prepared for future batches. I'm planning to siphon the eggs out as you suggest, and put them in one of these:
http://m.ebay.co.uk/itm/251062879715

It's a long shallow-ish 2L external breeding box with a flow of water provided by an airlift from the main tank it hangs on. That should give me the stable water parameters of the existing tank, but shallow oxygenated water, flow, accessibility and ease of feeding/monitoring.

I've got some earthworm pellets and spirulina (though this batch didn't seem interested in either).




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[apistomaster]

When I was raising Sturisoma I found that a group of about 80 newly free swimming fry only required a single earthworm stick twice a day. They did actively seek out the food but they grazed on it rather than eating their fill and moving on. I suspect that Farlowella fry would require very little food at any time so long as there is always a little bit of unspoiled food present all the time.
I think the flow through hatching/fry box would work well for starting out your Farlowella fry.
Farlowella fry are probably harder to raise than Sturisoma fry and their spawn sizes are smaller.
At least with Sturisoma there are so many fry that one can afford to lose 25% and still have a lot of fish and they spawned very frequently. At times among my young adult F1's it wasn't unusual to have several pairs spawning at any given time.
I never felt I was into the "safe zone" with Sturisoma until they had reached 2 to 2-1/2 inches TL.

[Mol_PMB]

Many thanks.
I came home tonight and after a long time carefully inspecting the tank I couldn't see any remaining fry. So I decided to a slightly-overdue water-change, tank tidy and filter-clean (all parameters were OK but TDS had crept up to 100)
After all that disruption was over, a twiglet reappeared!
So I have one tough little twig...
If the parents spawn again I will use the fry box but also set up another grow-out tank ready for them.

Many thanks for your advice


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[bekateen]

Paul, Have you seen this article http://www.tfhmagazine.com/details/arti ... rticle.htm? Maybe it will help you with the next batch of fry. Good luck!

[Mol_PMB]

Many thanks - some useful tips in there
The surviving twiglet definitely has a preference for areas of high current near the surface and the filter outflow, as noted in many of the breeding reports. It ignores all food supplies that I try to provide in tha area (the snails are having a feast...) but I will have to hope that there are enough micro-organisms amongst the plants and algae fo it to feed from. For the record, I have tried veggies (spinach, courgette, seaweed), meaty foods (earthworm pellets in a bag), commercial foods (flakes and pellets of various types in a bag or laid on leaves) and homemade foods (spirulina/agar/golden pearls paste spread on pieces of slate).

As of yesterday I have another batch of eggs in this tank, but this time it's the turn of the Dicrossus filamentosus. Mum is guarding a big clutch in her coconut cave. I think this is their fourth attempt; none of the previous batches have lasted more than 36 hours before being eaten. However, this looks like a bigger clutch, much more evenly laid. So perhaps they are learning to improve their technique?

The female F.vittata is looking increasingly plump so I wouldn't be surprised if I have another batch of twiglet eggs soon.
I have ordered one of those external 2-litre breeder boxes with airlift, and will see if I can do better in there. At least that should remove the problems of predation and snails. I am also preparing some algae-covered rocks and bogwood on the windowsill.

[Mol_PMB]

Take II: Here we go again...

Unfortunately this lot will be due to hatch while I'm abroad.
At least it shows the first batch wasn't a one-off.


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[Mol_PMB]

Well of the 30-odd twiglets that hatched, only one survived more than 2 days, but the survivor is now a week old and still going strong. Here is Twiglet, with Dad and its future siblings that were laid last night ;)

[bekateen]

That is a cool perspective of dad and baby.

[jp11biod]

My farlowellas have been very active. This last clutch, I waited until I found the first hatched egg to move the rest to a hang-on breeder box. I lost some eggs to the tank doing this but I now have about 15 fry looking pretty good now about one week later. They have grown noticeably.

Two Tank Amin gave me some great advice at CatCon. Drop the water level in the box to about 3/4 inch to put the fry where the food is. I dont know exactly what they are eating but they are getting spinach, crushed flake food and algae wafers, and microworms. I leave it there for an hour and then start the drip back up. So far so good. Thanks TTA!

[Mountain]

Hi,
I tried nearly for years to get the fry from my Farlowellas and my Sturisomathichtys to an adult status and I think, I am on the right way now. It works with the Breeding Box BB10, where I put the fry after I have taken them from the glass where they have been put by their parents. During the first week there is no need to feed them and I don't have to change the water, because it comes from the bigger Aquarium. Sometimes I clean the ground. But I always keep the water relatively fast streaming including airpump.
After the first week they get half a teaspoon full of Clorella Algae-Powder which emediately spreads all over the water with the function, that the fry can't but inhale it with the water.
From the next week on I feed HikarieAlgaeWafers - and that's all! No Earthworms etc. Just vegetarian food!
And I have a loss of about 2 or 3 from 40.

[Mol_PMB]

Thanks for the advice! I'm hoping I'll get a third clutch of eggs from my pair soon, so I can try some of these things


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[jp11biod]

Almost two weeks into hatching and I still have 14 doing well. Time soon for their own 5 gallon.

[Mol_PMB]

I was doing a water-change a couple of days ago and whilst re-filling the tank I was stunned to see a baby twiglet swimming around. I had no idea they had spawned again - the previous two spawns have been on the glass at the front of the tank but this time it was on the 'dark side' of the filter uptake pipe and I never noticed.

I have now managed to catch about 10 of the baby fish and have put them in a breeder box. It's got an airstone and I've rigged up a little spraybar from a powerhead in the tank so there's good flow.

I've chucked in an offcut of bogwood, a bit of slate and some frogbit (I don't know if decor is a good idea but the box is on the outside of the tank and lit by a window so it looked a bit bare).

I'll try the various feeding options suggested and see what happens

In another tank my first batch of Ancistrus 'Rio Paraguay' babies have spawned so I've got two lots of fry on the go. I'm leaving the BNs in their parents tank for now.

[bekateen]

Congratulations!

[Mol_PMB]

Thanks!
Here's a pic. I've caught a total of 14 so far and spotted a couple more in the tank. They don't seem interested in food yet.

[Mol_PMB]

I'm happy to say that some of the twiglets have started feeding, and a couple of them are trailing impressively long strings of poo, as pictured. I hope this is a good sign.

Maybe it's time to start a proper breeding log? Or would that jinx them?