Spawning - what is the cue?

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Adrian Thomas
Posts: 5
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2010 4:19 pm
Location: Oxford, UK

Spawning - what is the cue?

Post by Adrian Thomas » Wed May 22, 2013 4:54 am

It seems to be fairly easy to get botiine loaches ready to spawn - decent conditions and good food lead to very, very egg-laden females with massive protruding bellies. I currently have hugely pregnant Zebras, Sids, Histrionica and Kubotai. The problem is getting them to do anything with those eggs. My zebras have looked close to bursting for nearly 2 years. What is the trigger for spawning? All the reports of spawning tend to have sudden changes in conditions involved, but nothing specific.

I came across this paper (abstract quoted below), that may give a hint: Leptobotia curta, at least, spawn in temporary flood meadows. They looked at the chemical composition and temperature of the water in the flood meadows, and it was all over the place, but with no consisent pattern. What seems to matter is having a large expanse of heavily vegetated shallow water. That doesn't seem too hard to replicate.... the best thing is, given that they breed within 3-5 hours during the late afternoon of the day following the formation of shallow water, its a short experiment and it should be possible to see them breeding. Should also be possible to avoid egg-predation in a big flat heavily vegetated tank..

I'll give it a go with the Sids. Anyone else fancy trying it out? The more people we get trying to breed these beautiful fish the more likely we are to succeed...

Cheers,
Adrian
Zoolog Sci. 2007 Aug;24(8):850-3.
Spawning behavior of the kissing loach (Leptobotia curta) in temporary waters.
Abe T, Kobayashi I, Kon M, Sakamoto T.
Source
Ushimado Marine Laboratory, Graduate School of Natural Science and Technology, Okayama University, Ushimado, Setouchi 701-4303, Japan. dns18407@cc.okayama-u.ac.jp
Abstract
The natural spawning behavior of the kissing loach, an endangered species of Botiidae, was investigated in the wild in early June for two years in relation to several environmental factors. Kissing loaches spawned in temporary waters after elevation in water level. All spawnings observed (n=163) occurred within 3-5.5 hours from late afternoon to night after formation of the temporary water. These spawnings were performed by one female and one (71%) or two (29%) males in densely vegetated lentic waters. The female and following male(s) swam into dense grasses, where they vibrated to spawn intermittently. After the vibration continuing for 3-20 seconds, they moved to other parts of the dense grassy area and began vibration again. This sequence of spawning behavior was usually repeated several times, and the eggs were thus scattered widely. The spawning behavior and the rapid larval development of this species appear to be adaptations for the use of temporary waters as a spawning ground. The rise in water level and the consequent formation of temporary waters appear to be crucial triggers for reproduction of the kissing loach.

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