Nannostomus mortenthaleri breeding

[unissuh]

Bought a few of these at the start of the year to try my luck with and plopped them into my desk tank. Ended up with 3 males and a female.



Nice fish, very territorial though. Soon had a dominant male after quite a bit of sparring. I think I may need to remove the subdominant males soon, tank not quite large enough.





Soon started to see courtship between male and female. Involves the male performing a very cute see-saw motion and nudging the female mid-body.



I think this has been going on for a while but only just started to collect these yesterday:



Haven't gotten any further but I think the biggest problem is going to be collecting more than a few eggs. They hide them all over the tank and it's practically impossible to find them. Took me half an hour to find 3.

[Piscineidiot]

Oh Garrett... I'd wondered what you were up to. Who would have thought you'd just gone off and bred one of the most difficult to breed fish on this green Earth... Bastard.

Quite an achievement though, so you get exactly one smiley face -

[unissuh]

... I'd wondered what you were up to.

As I recall, it went something like this:

If you're up for a REAL challenge, how about [...] coral pencils? Whaddya say, up for it?

...and all I get is one smiley.

[Piscineidiot]

Hahahahaha, the idea was for it to BE a challenge! You managed it in less than three months. You're a beast, Garrett, a true fish breeding beast.

You can have a couple more smileys for that reply:

[unissuh]

Hahaha, 3 months *is* a long time! Jokes aside, I've mainly been rearing batches of fry from existing breeding pairs/colonies and spending time writing a thesis. Will see how this one goes I guess. A bit short on space for new batches of fry at the moment, trying to reshuffle batches around.

[nsee]

Unissuh you really are the master of breeding fish...
Is there any fish u cant breed???
Congratulations mate.

[unissuh]

My ego says thanks, but the rest of me says I'm not sure I'd call myself a master. I know there are heaps of people who have bred easily 10x the number of species that I have. I've just had good luck with a few unusual species.

There definitely are species I can't breed, in fact I'm working on three at the moment with no success...but thats part of the challenge.

This one is probably going to be stalled for a couple of months - going overseas next month so can't be around to raise fry.

[killiguy]

Well done.I wish you luck with raising the fry
Id like to know the species you cant breed--arowanas,zebra plecos,sperm whales perhaps

Ive read that they do well in permanent set up and a few fry will survive with lots of surface plants and BBS for the adults (as with the claret bettas and many killifish)

I remember these fish on Bayfishes list and were $25.00 a pop wholesale !!!!!!I couldnt take the plunge.I wish now I had

[Plantnut]

Well done, G.!
They are lovely fish with some amazing colour..

I would like to see you trying to breed Darwin algae shrimp in a domestic aquarium environment!

[unissuh]

Thanks for the encouragement.

Id like to know the species you cant breed--arowanas,zebra plecos,sperm whales perhaps

Hah, those would classify I guess! If you wanted a serious answer, the one I've had least success with (besides Sphaerichthys vaillanti, which all died) is a little catfish - Hypoptopoma sternoptychum. I can't sex them, can't seem to get even a sniff of one being gravid or any sign of breeding activity whatsoever. Not a lot of information out there on this one. They won't even stop being scared of me.

Ive read that they do well in permanent set up and a few fry will survive with lots of surface plants and BBS for the adults (as with the claret bettas and many killifish)

I haven't done full cycle yet so take this with a grain of salt, but mine are pretty avid hunters and I don't think fry or eggs would slip past them. I saw a fry in the tank once, which I think is fairly well planted, but it vanished after a day. This is actually what made me start hunting for eggs. It's been at least a month since I started seeing breeding activity from the fish so if any fry were to survive, I would have thought I'd see 'em by now. Maybe my tank is too small or not planted heavily enough.

I would like to see you trying to breed Darwin algae shrimp in a domestic aquarium environment!

Theres an idea - I've actually been considering trying something that has a salty stage but just lack space for the extra tank or two required. Trying DAEs might only require a couple of small cubes. Still got a refractometer etc left over from dabbling in marine so there shouldn't be much new equipment I need.

[unissuh]

Just a quick follow up of this - only ended up with one egg hatching out (bleh).

Follow up pictures:




I think this little guy was 4?? days old, just free swimming. I forget now. Likes to hang up near the surface not moving much. He's sitting in a tank with other fry in it, not sure if he will make it or not, had no time (or room) to set up something else for him.

Parents are going through spawning activity every couple of days now. Hope it will be easy to get a decent number of eggs out when I next give this a shot.

[glenngarry]

Nice fish mate good work.
JUst a question mate how many fish have you bred?

[unissuh]

Sorry, didn't see your question until just now - not many is the answer. Depends on definition of "bred", does pure serendipity count or are we talking controlled breeding? Maybe 3 or 4 if the latter.

[dollarpots]

Nice work.
I tried with these guys as you may know, but there was something off with my tank and they all died off over an 8 month period.

Mine did the little spawining dance and I did see a few eggs dropped but nothing ever eventuated.
From reading up when I had mine, most people have the best success by moving the mating pair into a separate tank with a bunch of moss and then once they have dropped the eggs you move them back to the main tank. OR you have a tank setup with something like gutterguard or mesh about an inch off the bottom so that when the eggs drop they fall through the holes and the parents can't eat them. The phrase "poor parents" was used Although having tanks set up like this is nowhere near as nice as the tank you have them in.

They really are an amazing fish, especially when the males spar and get really really red. I'd like to try them again in my next setup which is currently in the planning stages.

[Loach]

try breeding clown loaches... mwahaha