Rivulus cylindraceus "Al Castro strain"

[stormhawk]

Hi all, just wanted to share the picture of my dominant CYL male, raised from eggs that I received from Zulkifli aka zmzfam. Thanks to Zul I now have this wonderful male swimming in its own big plastic tank with his brothers and one female that I obtained at a later stage from Zul.

Look closely at the faint bluish edge to the top corner of the caudal fin. In real life it is a shiny baby blue colour. Wonderful little bugger.

[stormhawk]

Something's not going right with this species. The two females that I have with me are really fat but they're not spawning. I found only one egg laid in the mop and it was already fungused.

Found another egg laid on a sprig of Java moss and nothing else appeared. Any tricks to getting the male to do his job? I'm puzzled as they are fed regularly. Probably a water change might do the trick.

[RonWill]

Zul was having similar experience with a pair of Riv. agilae and it's now under my care. Eggs were as common as hen's teeth and tend to get fungicized, but I have incubating mops of agilae eggs that's due for wetting in about 2 weeks' time. Last I checked, the eggs were still viable (Zul, please remember dunking date)

I suspect a 70~80% water change can perk them up but beware of Chloramine levels. Dirty water beats dead killies hands down.

No, I'm also not prepared to babysit your cylindraceus

[Svein]

I have the Cascade de Soares strain, and get a lot of egg, and they are good!!!

I have a temp 24-25 degree, ph 6.5 and soft water. I change 30% water weekly.

I think this is a quite easy species, so may be the male is no good?
Good luck
regards
Svein

[stormhawk]

I have a feeling that temperature and also water conditions may be stopping my group from spawning. I have at least 2 pairs out of the 6 fishes in the same tank.

One of the males is highly dominant. With the current heatspell in Singapore, it might be stopping them from spawning.

The agilae that I had recently did not produce any eggs. I am having a hard time thinking what's going wrong.

Probably some ice-cubes and a slight water change might trigger some action from the males.

Svein, I'm wondering what's wrong with my dominant male as well. Probably need to try some other methods. Since yours will spawn over coarse gravel, I'll give it a try with a shallow tray of gravel.

[Svein]

Jianyang

If you have tanks enough, i would have split them at once. I have stopped having 2 males together, 3 males OK, but no 2 males. (my opinion)
The problem with 2 males shows very good for my Leptolebias, the males fight too much, the egg production fall, bu when I only have one male together with 2 female I get good egg production.
regards
Svein

[stormhawk]

That gives me an idea. Thanks for the pointer Svein. I'll give it a try since I have a spare tank lying around. Probably will transfer the extra male and the smaller ones out. I'll leave the dominant male in with the two fat females for spawning.

I agree with you, the males are interested only in fighting when other males are around, but for this species I find the males are very aggressive towards the females.

[stormhawk]

I forgot to add, I get the reverse result with Simpsonichthys when I have two males or more in the same tank. It makes them spawn better when there are at least 2 males in the same tank with a number of females.

[zmzfam]

JY,

split up the two pairs instead - that means you need to buy another tank!

For my CYL pair, I used the S sized Nisso or similar tank, drop in a mop and pick out the eggs every few days. Change the water regularly - twice a week would help - and of course feed well.

BTW, put them in an inconspicuos area well away from traffic ,.... and your face.

[stormhawk]

Extra tanks? I'm already pressed for space but will try that option if I have somemore tanks around. Going to the LFS later so a plastic tank might be a viable and cheap.. option. :P

I may just keep a trio in the main CYL tank. The thought of selling off the excess fellas is running about in my mind now if space is a premium.