No Egg Production

[JaredL]

Having trouble getting my black skirt tetra to produce eggs. I have separated one female from the community tank to make sure she's getting plenty to eat. -Feeding live bbs, frozen blood worms, and frozen brine shrimp. It has been 2 weeks of heavy feeding with no visible results.

-Tank parameters: Temp 72 (according to accurate thermometer, heater reading not accurate), TDS 190, ph 6.8, see attached pic of test strip for other info. Tank is a 3 week old setup using sponge filter and plants from a 3 year seasoned tank.

I'm almost certain this is a female as I have 5 others and believe I can see clear differences between the sexes. It's an older female (probably 3 years) that came with a group of fish I adopted 4 months ago from a "less attentive" fish keeper. Pics are right after feeding, so she's normally not as round as shown.

Hoping someone on here can give some ideas to trigger egg production as I feel I've hit a dead end. Let me know if there's other info I can provide.

[Theplatymaster]

@JaredL

that fish definitely appears to have eggs.

have you tried doing a colder water change?

also maybe drop the ph some more slowly with a few Indian Almond Leaves.

[JaredL]

@Theplatymaster

Thanks for the reply! I shouldn't have taken the picture right after feeding as she usually isn't round like that. I planned to do the cooler water change, but I thought that was just to trigger the spawning after the female was already holding eggs.

[Theplatymaster]

On 3/20/2023 at 8:44 PM, JaredL said:

Thanks for the reply! I shouldn't have taken the picture right after feeding as she usually isn't round like that.

can you please post another picture of the fish at a different time then for better egg evaluation?

 

[JaredL]

@Theplatymaster

As requested, pre-feeding pictures. Also you mentioned almond leaves before. I do have 1 in the tank, but didn't want to over do it since it's only a 10gal tank. With such low kh in the water, would another leaf potentially crash my ph? Also the fish is approx 3 years old. Could she just be too old? Thanks again for your advice.

[jwcarlson]

Is there a male with her?

Edit to elaborate... if there's not a male with her, I'd drop one in right after lights out tonight and see what happens over the next couple days.  I do not have experience breeding tetras or much of anything, really.  But I know that separation and reuniting is a common way of triggering a spawn for egg layers and have used it successfully to get my CPD female to drop eggs.

Edited March 21, 2023 by jwcarlson

[Theplatymaster]

On 3/21/2023 at 2:17 PM, jwcarlson said:

Is there a male with her?

Edit to elaborate... if there's not a male with her, I'd drop one in right after lights out tonight and see what happens over the next couple days.  I do not have experience breeding tetras or much of anything, really.  But I know that separation and reuniting is a common way of triggering a spawn for egg layers and have used it successfully to get my CPD female to drop eggs.

i agree with this.

although these tetras practice external fertilization, with these species the male induces breeding, so the female will not release eggs without one

On 3/21/2023 at 1:33 PM, JaredL said:

@Theplatymaster

As requested, pre-feeding pictures. Also you mentioned almond leaves before. I do have 1 in the tank, but didn't want to over do it since it's only a 10gal tank. With such low kh in the water, would another leaf potentially crash my ph? Also the fish is approx 3 years old. Could she just be too old? Thanks again for your advice.

still looks like eggs.

@JaredL

Edited March 21, 2023 by Theplatymaster

[JaredL]

@Theplatymaster @jwcarlson

Good news! I think. Placed a male in the tank last evening, about an hour before lights out, and topped off with slightly cooler RO water(tank was already low ~2gal). This morning I saw some interaction between them. Couldn't be sure if it was spawning or their typical scrapping, but was pretty sure I saw some really small particles falling. Can only see what I believe are eggs on the mop as the bottom is white pool sand. In picture, yellow arrows I think are eggs, red arrow is a piece of sand. If these are eggs, 24 to 48hrs before they hatch? Parents have been removed from the tank as well. Thanks for the help!

[jwcarlson]

I have no clue what their eggs would look like.  But that looks like eggs to me.  Would have to look up how long to hatch but 2 or 3 days seems pretty typical.  

[AquariumCentral]

what happened