Loaches Online Forum

I got from Armin (Senger) in Hildesheim, Germany, some loaches from Thailand, Khao Sok. One of the species is Schistura cf, geisleri (determination ongoing, because I have no preserved material for an exact determination).

Since a few days females have bellies full with eggs. I separated four females and two males for spawning. Look here:



I tried to introduce spawning with a partial water change of – cold – reverse osmose water and further feeding with black mosquito larvae (Culex).

Until now I got not success. I will try going on with this method and also try iodine and "salt".

Any other idea?

Gerhard

Interesting and I look forward to more.
Have you tried differing pH, hardness and nitrate levels? Other tricks you could use are differing lighting periods and intensities as well as lowering the water column to a few inches in depth. A trick a friend of mine uses is a heavy rain simulation with an adapted bucket suspended over the tank and water pumped in from his water butt for an hour or two.

Good luck.

Hi Gerhard,

Have you had success breeding any other species of Schistura? If so, how did you trigger them, was a cool water change enough set them off? I have some rare Schistura that I have been trying to breed for some time now, without success. The fish are all in excellent condition but are together in a species only aquarium. I wondered whether I should try separating a pair, but it would be a bit of an upheaval given the amount of cobbles in this tank. I had hoped that they would spawn with a large cool water change but every time have had no luck.

Emma