Loaches Online Forum

I did a well-overdue water change on the river tank today, and it seems to have triggered some breeding activity among the cheni. Two males are having a major battle for the favours of a female, who's loving the attention
There's the odd break in the fight to work on spawning pits and try to lure her towards one, although she's not above givng one a whack if they get too forward It's been going on for over an hour now, and there's no sign of a winner yet..













The white clouds are getting frisky too

Boisterous little dudes aren't they!

Nice pictures!

We have a winner!







I'll be keeping a close eye out for fry

S-weet! They really do get into it eh?
Nice to see that the fighting had a purpose.

What else do you have in the tank? Babies should be ok with the Whiteclouds and the parents won't touch them.
Expect to see some baby activity in around 2 weeks or less.

Martin.

I've also got Rasbora dorsiocellata and rosy barbs in there. The rasboras mostly stick to the top levels, so they should be ok, but I'm not sure about the barbs.
I've seen spawning activity a couple of times before, but haven't had any fry yet. I've got B&Q play sand as substrate, which is quite fine and heavy, and I'm wondering if the fry have trouble moving through it. I added a few gravel areas, but they seem to prefer digging in the sand. This time they've spawned right on the edge of a patch of gravel, so I'm feeling a little more hopeful.

A lot of Rasboras are quite efficient hunters, but in this case I would probably fear the barbs more because they'll feed off the bottom.

Fingers crossed.

Martin.

Cool!
Its interesting to see them digging in the sand like that.

Fabulous series of pics, Whitey. Fingers crossed for the flutter of tiny fins.

Emma

Thanks for sharing these pictures. Very interesting!!

Fabulous pictures Whitey

I hope you manage to get some fry, Ive just had quite a bit of what seemed to be spawning activity but have seen no signs of any fry yet

Good luck with the spawning Whitey :-) It's great to see you have been treated to a spawning right by the glass which is always fun to watch. As Martin has said it seems to be about two weeks from spawning to seeing fry. Cheni fry will hide in the substrate for the first few weeks of their life emerging when they are about 5-6mm in length. This hopefully will allow them to survive any egg eaters in the tank, it's once they come out of hiding that the risks start to multiply. Having said that they do seem quite alert and we have had fry survive in a tank with some very big and greedy fish.

Congratulations to Mark as well! Dare i ask if any of the fish you got from me were involved?

I'm hoping that we will see some more fry in the next few days, our new Alpha finally got comfortable enough to spawn a last week. Unfortunately he seemed to get carried away and invited 3 of the females back to the same pit within the space of 2 days. I just hope that any eggs from the earlier spawning sessions were not disturbed. That said we don't actually know if any eggs were laid.

LES..

LES.. wrote:Congratulations to Mark as well! Dare i ask if any of the fish you got from me were involved?

Funny you should ask Les, its one of the males that I got from you that is digging all the pits and attracting the females

I wasn't 100% sure whether or not it was spawning activity at first but the two biggest females seemed to suddenly get quite fat and then over the next day or so both appeared on the front glass very slim again so now its just waiting and watching

Cheers everyone. I'm really happy now I got my new camera when I did- it's so much easier to get semi-decent photos.
I've got plenty of well hidden spots under the bogwood that the other fish don't use, so any fry have got a chance if they're smart enough to stay hidden. Good luck to you LES, and Mad Duff as well. It must be the time of year for it

P.Cheni females do seem to get pretty fat when they have eggs are are in egg laying/breeding condition.

I am now resurrecting this old thread. My P.myersi (similar to cheni) spawned in the sand like that and I want to know if you eventually got any fry. Could the fry get out of the fine sand?