Fundulopanchax sjoestedti - breeding

[bcourtright]

Hi all

I picked up a nice pair of 2 inch long Fundulopanchax. sjoestedti blue gularis at my recent AZ Rivulin club meeting. They currently are housed in a bare bottomed 5 gallon tank with a floating mop, tetra blackwater extract, and hornwort.

The male is well colored, and the female is a light blue. They hang out well together, and often float touching each other. Other times the female hides in the moss or hangs out on the bottom of the tank while the male swims on the top.

They are eating live and frozen BBS, frozen bloodworm, frozen daphnia.

Do you have any idea at what age (size?) SJO begin breeding, and what live foods are appropriate for this species? I've read that chopped earthworms are the best at getting these into breeding condition. I don't want to introduce unwanted bacteria into the tank, is there a way to make sure the earthworms are "clean" or gut load them with fish food so that I don't have to worry about killing my fish?

I will be setting up a 10 gallon planted permanent tank for them soon. Any suggestions on setup on the tank?

Thanks!

[mk_ultra]

I used live blackworms on all my fish to get them ready to breed. Never had a problem. I have about 7 Dwarf Red SJO ina planted 5 and they love them. I feed them once a day and the other feeding is Hikari micropellets.