Page 1 of 1

Woodcats spawning at a young age

Posted: 07 Mar 2023, 05:38
by Catfish-ologist
@characinkid Maybe you could be of use here since I remember you talking about this before.

Hello all who have decided to continue reading all of my threads on woodcats, it must be quite boring at this point to the public eye.
This evening I was going around looking at everything and doing health checks, and I spotted something I wasn't expecting. I have a 30g grow-out tank that is heavily overstocked with grow-outs. I have ~70 2.5-3" T. intermedia and 17 2" Bristle noses on one side of the tank, and divided on the other half is about 50 D. perugiae 1.5-2". I noticed two very very small eggs on the honeycomb side. I never expected any spawns in this tank because of how crowded it is. After further inspection there was a small female guarding a few dozen eggs in a cave. I dumped it out and I have a total of 31 D. perugiae eggs from ~7 month old F-2 honeycombs. Interesting note: the eggs are about half the size of normal honeycomb eggs. Still these are pretty small.
Maybe someone else can share their experience here as I didn't know they could spawn at such a young age.
Just wanted to share thanks!
Some video footage:
-- Sean

Re: Woodcats spawning at a young age

Posted: 07 Mar 2023, 06:59
by bekateen
Impressive Sean. Congratulations! I don't recall at what age my F1 perugiae first spawned, but I have been surprised by venezuelanus corys breeding at 30 days of age.

It's always great to make new discoveries. Keep going!

Cheers, Eric

P.S., your youtube link wasn't displaying, so I edited your post to fix the link.

Re: Woodcats spawning at a young age

Posted: 07 Mar 2023, 14:44
by characinkid
Hi all,

I have had a group of about 25 young T.intermedia in a 10G and found eggs in the tank at around 7-8 months of age. It was a surprise to me that they bred at such as young age as my wild parents are approx 4-5 yrs old. I will say that the eggs were smaller and the hatch rate was lower. My adults lay many more eggs and hatch at a much higher rate.
I have since traded the young at the LFS but at that time they were about 1/2 grown I would say.

As Eric has said, I think that fish can spawn at much younger age than most of us anticipate given good food/environment etc.

Re: Woodcats spawning at a young age

Posted: 08 Mar 2023, 14:54
by Catfish-ologist
Well, maybe it wasn't a one time fluke. I left about 3-4 eggs in the cave for the female to guard so I didn't stress her too much. She is still on them today, low and behold a cave to the right has a spawn from a different female, I have to do a water change today anyway, I hope this doesn't trigger any more spawns. My grow out space is highly limited at this point and I would want to keep F-2 & F-3 grow outs isolated. I will begin shipping out fish here in a few weeks, hopefully I can get these sold before my D. romani grow outs do the same thing. I guess the breeding season is in full effect here, I had 5 species spawn in the same day.

Re: Woodcats spawning at a young age

Posted: 11 Mar 2023, 21:19
by Catfish-ologist
Well, I guess I spoke too soon in my last post about D. romani. They just spawned today. Now I officially have 8 tanks of woodcats spawning :YMPARTY: Maybe If I say my T. intermedia growouts will be next I will have the same luck? :))

Cheers!
-- Sean

(Note: The romani are about 7 months old as well)

Re: Woodcats spawning at a young age

Posted: 14 Mar 2023, 17:54
by Catfish-ologist
Ok, it must be the season changing or something, my F-1 T. intermedia just spawned.
Total spawns from juveniles in this thread:
D. romani F-2 ~7 months, 3 spawns already ~1/day at this point
D. Perugiae F-2 ~7 months, 3 spawns already
T. intermedia F-1 ~9 months, 1 spawn

I am quite happy a group of F-1's decided to spawn, my original wild group suffered from a lice infestation a few months back, they are alive, however they have not bred since.
Cheers!
-- Sean

Re: Woodcats spawning at a young age

Posted: 14 Mar 2023, 19:47
by characinkid
Ill add onto this that my wild group of T Intermedia have spawned 3 times in the last 7 days, must be something in the air/water! :)

Re: Woodcats spawning at a young age

Posted: 31 Mar 2023, 05:59
by bekateen
characinkid wrote: 14 Mar 2023, 19:47 Ill add onto this that my wild group of T Intermedia have spawned 3 times in the last 7 days, must be something in the air/water! :)
I'm earnestly waiting on mine to spawn for the first time. :YMPRAY: