So Recently, i have been able to start pairing off (well i haven't been the "pairing off" person.... the fish have started pairing off and as i find a pair keeping others away in the group tank, I catch them and place them in their own tank.
So far, 2 pairs of Caucatoides have paired off, been removed to their own new tank and both pairs have spawned and babies are doing well. There is about a 2 week time difference between the two spawnings and while i have left the male in the tank, female does 95% of the caring, and sometimes chases male away.
One of the strange things, is that with the second pair, which are about 5 days old o so, (well 5 days visible to me)
these babies have the "redest" egg sacks i have ever seen! normally, the egg sacks when the newborns first start to move around, seem to be more yellowish..... This is the first time i have seen where their bellies are a different color. And this is before i started to feed them. You can tell from the first pic, where the babies have eaten the Live baby brine shrimp, and their bellies are orangish, much like the color of the bbs.
In fact you can tell where the brine shrimp have the most food value is just after they hatch and their protein is very high, hence the orange color.
Once they (bbs) have lived for 12-20 hours, they use up their initial high protein bellies and they are not as much food value to the fish. Very very important to feed live bbs as soon as possible after they hatch. I digress......
still doesn't answer the coloring in the second pairs spawn... so i will try to look into reasoning for this...
Would like to think this pair is going to produce much higher colored progeny, but just a guess....
I have been feeding live BBS almost exclusively, and they are growing very well on the live food.
very cool, I'm setting up some tanks I plan to use for apistos so will be interested in how these turn out
I got some small panduros that are growing out now in my established planted tank
If i didn't mention in the first post, these are all Wild Caught!
so getting them to pair off and moving them to their own tank is a bit of a challenge, as i have 3 or 4 different species that got mixed together in shipping, so it is a slow process getting to figure out who belongs to whom.....
I will definately have some F1's available in a few months..... (maybe a bit longer if i am to chose sexes)
david
Good luck with the panduros.....
very cool, i'd love to get a pair or trio when available
the panduros have grown a lot in just the week or so that I've had them. 1 is definitely male, not sure about the other 4 yet.
I've taken your advice on the newly hatched shrimp, I have the small dish type hatchery that doesn't require an air pump and I harvest & feed 2-3 times a day. Seem to stop hatching after ~36-48 hours then I start a new batch
Yes, Baby Brine Shrimp, are best if harvested in just over 24 hours. (they will be very orange in color, which denotes their highest protein value. after they grow on for another 12 hours, they start to absorb their egg sacks, and lose their food value... so best to harvest and feed within a couple hours of harvesting in 24 hours.