breeding gold ocellatus

[linuxrulesusa]

I hope that I may have a pair now.  I have four gold ocellatus.  Three look alike - darker top half, more aggressive, and behavior makes me assume males, and one is different and smaller, hopefully a female.

So I put a divider in my 20 long and rotated the suspect males through the larger compartment with the presumed female. I think a match may be close as the two now together are now doing a lot of 'shimmying'/dancing and less trying to kill each other violently.   

Here's a pic:



The other two presumed males are in the other comaprtment alone and seem to be doing OK for now.

[Dan K]

Good luck with them!
I'm finding they breed like rabbits but my females pick off the older fry at about 3 weeks. The male kind of hovers over them but if they get close to mama it's curtains! I think I have had about three rounds of fry already in the last month.
I'm thinking of pulling the breeders out to another tank and let they fry gain some good size, then move the fry to a grow out tank and start over with the breeders back in the original tank for another round. The reason I would do this is because I think it would be easier and safer to catch and move three adults than 20+ tiny fry.

[linuxrulesusa]

Good luck with them!
I'm finding they breed like rabbits but my females pick off the older fry at about 3 weeks. The male kind of hovers over them but if they get close to mama it's curtains! I think I have had about three rounds of fry already in the last month.
I'm thinking of pulling the breeders out to another tank and let they fry gain some good size, then move the fry to a grow out tank and start over with the breeders back in the original tank for another round. The reason I would do this is because I think it would be easier and safer to catch and move three adults than 20+ tiny fry.

Good to know, thanks.

Did you try siphoning the fry with a gravel vac?  I did that with hardier fish like thorichthys species and convicts and similar and had no issues...the gold ocellatus seem pretty durable as well but I don't know about the fry.

What I may try doing is moving the parents to the other compartment (since I divided my 20 long)...we'll see if the mesh is small enough to keep the fry on one side or not.

I'll probably get rid of the two extra males once I confirm these other two are a pair, e.g. they breed once for me.