LionheartsGhost

If anybody has a homie in Vietnam willing to ship me some wild ones let me know lol

Yeah it’s difficult. Just when I got the hang of it everything went south. My wife had an art show out of town last weekend and a snow storm caused a power outage and my water dropped to a very low temp. I got home and all my fish died from cold temperatures. I had well over 100 fry at two weeks old in a external hang on tank that cycled water through and it cycled the cold water through. My neigbor was feeding them for me but they are older and didn’t know what was going on. So that sucks. Just when I was about to switch from micro worms to brine shrimp. I wish I had been home because I could have run a generator or just kept the room warm enough with the fireplace but it happens. That being said I have signed up for alerts on every site I could find that have had them in stock at some point so I can try again. Especially since in the last week I set up three new tanks just for breeding these fish. I figure they need time to cycle while I wait for more to become available. I am worried though as much as I like irrubesco I think Lorteti will always be my favorite and I waited 8 years for them to become available. I sure I hope I don’t have to wait another 8 years.

Update: No visible fry anywhere in the tank this morning. But the same pair spawned again around noon. Exactly 7 days after first spawn. I’m afraid I do not think my breeder box or micro worm starter will be here in time. So we’ll see if I can keep this batch alive.

Also I find these helpful for determining species.

Hello! In the past I have tried to breed C. Irrubesco, always with no luck. But recently I have had some accidental luck with C. Lorteti. I will post some videos. Last Saturday my Lorteti’s spawned around 2 pm. Four days later in the evening I spotted fry in the tank. I added a hang on breeder net with some Java moss. I used a turkey baster to suck them out. I counted 38 but there were many I got doubles and didn’t count because I lost sight of them in the baster so i think the number was closer to 50. The next morning I was only able to observe a handful in the net. Yesterday only a few. And today only a few. I am afraid most of them passed away. I have to admit that this was totally unexpected and I have no resources to take care of them. I have been feeding a tiny pinch of first bites 3 times a day because it is all I had on hand for baby fish. But I cannot observe them actually eating the first bites. My tank is a year old and I’m sure there is plenty of micro organisms in the water but I’m not sure they can make it through the net mesh. I have since bought a hang on breeder that pumps water through, a brine shrimp hatchery and eggs, and a micro worm starter for future occurrences and am waiting for them to arrive. I also put a small Tupperware under their spawning area so I can harvest eggs instead of fry. My tank was 11 months old when I introduce the Lorteti’s. Prior to that the tank was empty for about six months due to me loosing all my Irrubesco’s due to me improperly setting up a surface skimmer and them getting sucked in. So I took a break. The tank was completely filled with snails at the introduction with them being non visible by morning. I have 5 Lorteti’s, 3 males of different ages and sizes and 2 young adult females. Water is extremely hard, ppm 300-400 from faucet. Faucet water has a ph of 9.5 but tank stays between 7.5 and 8.5 depending on how close to water changes. Current ph is 7.6. No sign of ammonia. I can test nitrate and nitrite if requested. I feed them frozen brine shrimp every morning and cycle between mysis shrimp and bloodworms every evening. I feed them snails whenever I can, I would say once a month. But I often see baby snails in the tank and they might possibly be colonizing in secret. The dominant male was dancing with his preferred female for maybe a week or so prior to spawning but it was never as long and vigorous as the day of spawning. 3 days before spawning I left my light on all night. The next two days he did not try to initiate spawning.The day after I set my light back to the timer so it runs 5:30 am to 8:30 pm. The third day after resetting was spawning day. I realized that he didn’t initiate spawning until about a week after I had originally set the timer to 5:30-8:30. Possibly an important environmental factor. At first male did not follow female to spawn but made sure the other three Lorteti’s were banished to the far corner. After spawning dad banished mom and remained close to the eggs to guard them, never letting the others near and hardly came out to eat other then what floated near his area. I never saw the eggs after they dropped to the substrate. Dad was quite visibly upset while I was harvesting fry with the baster. My tank is a 40 gallon breeder. The temperature stays at 78 degrees throughout the day but drops to 75 and even as low as 73 some nights. Video 1 shows the dance Video 2 shows spawning, in high quality and brightness turned all the way up you can just view the eggs sputter down at 10 seconds