Oto Spawning!
Today was supposed to be a relatively benign day; sure, I had a bunch of plant trimming to do (trying to get some light down to the substrate and my little strand of glosso), but nothing too fancy. As you can see, it was plenty overgrown:
However, on the heels of my cory catfish (somewhat) successfully breeding, I noticed my oto catfish going at it today (as mentioned on Aquamaniacs). Mainly, it's two males chasing around a single female. I thought it was all show until I noticed eggs on various leaves:
Typically there were only one or two, although I did find this grouping of four on my amazon sword:
I clipped the leaves that I found them on and put most of them under the duckweed in the breeding net. Fearing that the snails would snack on them, I tried to remove the bigger ones I could get my fingers on. The four on the amazon sword were a little more difficult. It turns out that these eggs aren't as sticky as the cory eggs, and I "dropped" one, which the zodiac loach ate before it hit the floor. I also put a wendtii leaf with a couple eggs on it in the 10 gallon tank and crossed my fingers.
I managed to catch the oto mating dance on video:
Since they were hiding behind a plant during copulation, here is a quick video of the relative orientation of the male (U-shape) and the female during spawning (right before the zodiac loach comes to check things out):
Meanwhile, I cleared out so much rotala indica, that the golden kuhlii loaches felt the need to flee and find a new home behind the breeding net (I was very concerned while trimming that I'd cut one of them in half).
A view of the trimmed tank:
As long as I'm telling you how busy a day it was, I might as well add that I moved the "one-eyed" cory from the 10-gallon tank back to the main tank. His fins aren't in the best of shape, but then again, he's joining cories with their own fin problems.
Also, for posterity's sake:
However, on the heels of my cory catfish (somewhat) successfully breeding, I noticed my oto catfish going at it today (as mentioned on Aquamaniacs). Mainly, it's two males chasing around a single female. I thought it was all show until I noticed eggs on various leaves:
Typically there were only one or two, although I did find this grouping of four on my amazon sword:
I clipped the leaves that I found them on and put most of them under the duckweed in the breeding net. Fearing that the snails would snack on them, I tried to remove the bigger ones I could get my fingers on. The four on the amazon sword were a little more difficult. It turns out that these eggs aren't as sticky as the cory eggs, and I "dropped" one, which the zodiac loach ate before it hit the floor. I also put a wendtii leaf with a couple eggs on it in the 10 gallon tank and crossed my fingers.
I managed to catch the oto mating dance on video:
Since they were hiding behind a plant during copulation, here is a quick video of the relative orientation of the male (U-shape) and the female during spawning (right before the zodiac loach comes to check things out):
Meanwhile, I cleared out so much rotala indica, that the golden kuhlii loaches felt the need to flee and find a new home behind the breeding net (I was very concerned while trimming that I'd cut one of them in half).
A view of the trimmed tank:
As long as I'm telling you how busy a day it was, I might as well add that I moved the "one-eyed" cory from the 10-gallon tank back to the main tank. His fins aren't in the best of shape, but then again, he's joining cories with their own fin problems.
Also, for posterity's sake:
- kH: 10 degrees
- pH: 7.0 (30 ppm CO2)
- GH: ~25 degrees
- Nitrates: 50+ ppm
posted by k-maub @ 1:18 PM
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