I had 3 Sewellia lineolata but 2 got into a vicious battle and one was killed. the remaining 2 seem to be spawning. 4 days ago they had formed a circular shallow hole in the sand next to a piece of driftwood. The were spawning sorta like cories, one poking it`s head into the others side. At times one was ontop of the others head. This went on for about an hour, then the went under the driftwood and stayed until lights came on in the morning. Can I be lucky enough to have a spawning pair? No eggs.
29 gal tank with pH6.0 temp is 70f nights and 72f days. Sand substrate with a few river ricks and heavily planted.
I started this tank for my spawning Panda Cories and their fry. I had to relocate a trio of threadfin rainbows and put them in with the cories. Since adding the threadfins my cories spawned again and fry survived their mouths. Hopefully the threadfins aren`t smart enough to catch fry.
This sounds perfectly possible MaryJ. Based on experience with other Hillstreams, you may find babies in around a week. The eggs are probably buried in the gravel (if they spawned) and the babies will stay in the gravel till they grow a bit. If the tank is well established, they will feed off the rockwork and microorganisms. One thing of note, cover filter intakes with sponge. I had baby Pseudogastromyzon in my cannister filters!
Oh....and if you do breed them I will be insanely jealous!
I'm amazed that one died after fighting. Generally, hillstreams don't get that violent. Don't really have the equipment to do damage. However, Emma's experience with photographing a fight shows they get pretty serious about it.
My cuties are doing great but I have no idea, now, as to what they were doing. They stay pretty close to each other and haven`t put on a show since then. They`re very active and haven`t seemed to be watching over any eggs. Do the Sewellia lineolata guard their eggs?
Since we don't know that much about Sewellia, we don't really know if they guard their eggs. The other hillstreams that are known to spawn in captivity (P. cheni and L. disparis) bury eggs in the gravel and leave them alone.
Our Dominant pair of Hillstreams have been breeding for a while. For a couple of weeks the male will chase the female away (and everyone else) then for a few days they will 'snuggle' up, nosing at each other, going round and round each other, the male will dig a hole and encourage the female to go in. We have never seen them both in the hole at the same time although obviously they have been
It could have been a case of "have a look at the nice hole I have dug", trying it out for size before spawning in in for real. Or maybe they just wanted to cuddle last night.
With my poor eye sight the only difference I see in the 2 is one has a longer tail. Oh well , they`re nice to look at even if they`re the same sexes. Good for me i`m not into breeding for a living. I just love them Loaches.