NANFA-- Much Ado About Spawning

Todd Crail (farmertodd_at_buckeye-express.com)
Mon, 10 Mar 2003 23:04:17 -0500

Hi All,

Well, the fishes are getting ready to git down. Everyone is coming into
color as I've allowed the sunlight to come into the room in the morning.
Pretty, pretty, pretty. And just in time as well... I set up an aquarium at
a local High School last week, finishing touches this week (Pics to come
shortly). I plan on taking the contents of the 30 gallon on in for their
viewing pleasure.

I'm not going to worry much about the darters and dace eggs/fry, unless I
see them. I will be setting up a 10 gallon for rearing, just in case. What
I'm more concerned about is aggression from the Orangespot male. He's still
quite well behaved, but he's only at about 50% color, from what I can gauge
from pictures of full nuptial fish.

The tank has an awesome footprint, albeit a weird one. The tank's
dimensions are 48"x20"x14", so there's quite a bit of floor space. The room
is also illuminated with sunlight, a benefit I plan to incorporate into
their spawning behavior. Tank is still down at 60 degrees which is
wonderful.

For those of you who've bred Orangespots, what type of area do they
generally guard while on the nest? Am I asking for serious trouble by
putting everyone together in a tank this size? There will be lots of cover,
but I wasn't really sure how nasty Ospots got. The fella in question is
about 4" long... The female is about 5", but I'd imagine once she did her
thing, she'll be off in the rest of the tank with the other folks.

Also, do they have any specific habits in nest building that I can use to
get him to one side or the other? Do they generally spawn over gravel
instead of sand? Do they like a spot with rocks to the back of them so they
only have 2 or 3 directions to guard, like some other centarchids? Things
of this nature...

I'd like to aquascape in this manner, although I do realize, that's still no
guarantee :)

Hopefully, the fish got enough of a chill this winter to develop the eggs
correctly. I did a 3 day fast in the tank to see if the females were just
rounded from food or not. All the males slimed down nicely as their guts
cleared, but the girls kept nice and plump "birthing hips". :)

Thanks! :)

I hope you know that this will go down on your permenant record.
http://www.farmertodd.com
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