Petricola Breeding

[Andrew_B]

Has anyone bred Petricolas before? The group of 6 that I have in one of my growout tanks are breeding (as I keep finding 1" fry growing inside of my eheim). I have an extra tank somewhere for them. Any tips on how the tank should be set up? I've read in a couple places to use marbles or large rock as substrate so that the eggs can fall through, away from the adults - any ideas?

Thanks

[SteveCGG]

Mine have bred naturally, most babies don't get to grow up though... but I don't try to get the eggs....I saw this....

http://www.kwas.ca/Articles/Petricola.pdf

[mnemenoi]

If I am correct, many breeders use Malawi and Victorians to breed them as the tangs are aware of their behavior. I would bet that seperately marbles would be effective at isolating the eggs and young fry from any hungry adults.

[Andrew_B]

Awesome - thanks steve. Had something like that in my head, nice to hear of it working though. This will be a fun little project.

[R_sustaita]

what a great article. that actually made me want to breed them. I could say i was him on breeding angels. i gave up on them but i did sold the fish that time. and im back this time to breed them.

[Andrew_B]

Well I copied this setup in a 10gal. I also made a rock formation with a piece of slate on other side of tank for those not doing the hibbity dibbity, but I guess theres no control on where they go. We'll see how it works

[eklikewhoa]

I would do a double layer of marbles if you can. Forget who it was but they managed with just a tray of marbles in a tank.

[Andrew_B]

It seems to be working. 4 days after setting it up, I peeked under the marbles and saw a large amount of eggs, probably 200+ but it looks like they were all engulfed in some kind of cloudy fungus. I'm going to clean it out, and clean marbles real good and start from scratch. I'll just have to peek inside daily to see if I can separate any good eggs from now on.

[dblondfemme]

if you aren't worried about the seal on your tanks turning blue, you could does with some methylene blue and it will keep the fungus from growing on the eggs.

[eklikewhoa]

Agree with the above, you would need to add some sort of fungus med or somehow add some flow over the tank floor to keep them from going stagnant.

[aquabee]

Agree with the above, you would need to add some sort of fungus med or somehow add some flow over the tank floor to keep them from going stagnant.

Agreed. And some airstones would help too!

[Andrew_B]

Working on a new 10gal tank setup for these guys and using the whole tank instead of relying on them actually breeding inside of the flower pot.


Just a random sketch I did with some ideas. Looking to angle all sides of the bottom 1/4 of tank with acrylic and silicone. Then have a couple air pump powered siphons in the catch area to send the eggs up to the tumbler. Even unfertilized eggs will get sucked up, but figured that they wont fungus up as quickly in there than sitting in a dead spot of tank in case I cant attend to tank asap.

Any ideas? Seems like tumblers would be easy diy as well so this would probably be a pretty inexpensive project.

[R_sustaita]

but wouldnt that make you move everthing out so you can see whats going on and/or remove the unfertilized eggs?

[Andrew_B]

The plan is to have a couple small pumps to move the eggs from the bottom area to tumblers. Even if the pump idea doesnt work. Ill have the egg crate in a couple sections, it wont be difficult to move a section with only marbles as substrate

[R_sustaita]

ok, sounds good. cant wait to see the final product.