Eggs again

[joeri]

Today I found 'mama', my female pleuro, decorating the plants with small white balls as if it were Christmas trees.

I triggered her the same way I did last time, only I hadn't been feeding her extra's. What I did do was separating her from her 5 male friends. I placed her in an extra clean tank with a string of waterpest, an airstone and a small filter. I did this after I noticed she'd grown fatter again and there was one male in obvious mating condition.
After two days alone (and good feeding) I placed that particular male with her for one night. The next morning I saw what I wanted to see: sperm attached to the flat stone, to the plants, to the bare bottom, to ...

I left the tank as it was till that night when I cleaned it all out. The water was refreshed one last time and I stopped feeding her. Today she started laying eggs. To avoid her eating the plants in the sterile tank I placed her with her friends. She can lay the rest there if there is more to come.

She was truly a clumsy when she tried to climb the plant. My cynops are better climbers. But I think you will agree that this is a great shot.

And finally a better shot of mama - I like the small reflection in her eye. Makes you want to project human feelings to her.

In a day or two I'll know if the eggs are any good, for now they look promising. This time I let her lay in an as clean as possible tank with lots of air. I hope this time fungus will spare more eggs.
Oh yes, water temp. is 21°C

Joeri

 

[garrison]

Wonderful shots, she really looks cute in that last picture. Maybe she's thinking "sigh, I hope that's over with!

"

 

[danny]

I was just reading and saw that you use an airstone. Whats the purpose of an airstone? I also have P waltl, and CO's and P hongkongnesis, do they need one?

 

[joeri]

I don't use airstones in my adult tanks as they are planted enough. I placed an airstone in the egg tank to help provide the best water quality possible. Usually there aren't to many plants in theses kind of tanks because you want to be able to observe them, hence the airstone.
I usualy don't use airstones is larve tanks, but as they aren't heavy planted either I put an airstone in a bucket of water that I'll use later on in the tanks.

In this particular case I want to test if this setup helps avoiding fungus growing on the eggs. In my experience pleuro eggs are very vulnerable to that.

ps: airstones rimple the surface which prevents a thin layer of dust(?) covering it and creating a sticky layer. I don't see that layer in my adult tanks.

 

[joeri]

Pleuro's don't lay eggs seperatly like some other species do. Usually there are more eggs in a string. That's also why they don't bother to wrap them in leaves. She just drops them on all kinds of plants and even stones.

In this picture you can vaguely see the string I'm talking about. Mind that in this string there happens to be only one egg (and something that might be the start of an egg but didn't evolve)

My camera can't focus on such a small thing and the zoom isn't perfect either. I got this result by first focusing on the plant beside and than centering the egg. It's the best I could get.

Joeri

 

[colin]

what age and size is mama?

 

[joeri]

3 years old and +/- 18cm

*looks for exact data but can't find it*