Annual species - do their egg laying capacity peak?

[erikthur]

I am experiencing a decreasing number of eggs in my Notho foerschi tank and these fish are only two months old. My Simp suzarti group keeps on producing at three months age.
So that started me thinking if their egg production has already peaked?
What is your experience in this field? What to expect of annual species?
And put in another context - is it wise to go to a killie show and bid on full-grown annual killies?

[stormhawk]

Erik, I think age does play a part in egg production but so does diet, water conditions and the surroundings. Egg production should peak at some point of time in the life of an annual and slowly taper off at a certain point until they begin to produce nothing but infertile eggs.

We can correlate this with the fact that many don't make it past their first year in the wild. The young grow up fast, mature quickly and lay as many eggs as they can into the substrate before their pond dries up during the dry season. I would say that egg production should peak when they are subadults, or basically young adults.

Bidding on fully-grown adult fish might be a good bet to get started off with a breeding plan but I would personally prefer younger fish that have just started to mature and show their finest colours and high activity levels plus a hearty appetite.

Talking about auction, now how I wished we would have another auction sometime soon in Singapore.

[TyroneGenade]

Hello Erik

Male fertility does seem to peak but the females only seem to get more fertile as they grow.

In the problems you PMed me about regarding the foerschi it could be several thinks and I would need a more detailed description of the tank and feeding. The foerschi are normally very productive.

Regards