Ps. annulatus Monroviae

[TyroneGenade]

Hi all,

Got sent peat from a tank of the above and as of this morning I have 17 fry. Previous attempts to import this species were a total waist of time but I do tend to be rather obstinate. On the down side, I am totally unprepared for a success...

I've fished out the fry and placed them in a shallow tray with Riccia and moss. I've added a few snails and fed the snails a little with some dried food in the vain hope that this will encourage some infusoria in the tub.

Can anyone suggest some good advice?

Wright, you have been fantasizing about this species for a long long time. What info can you supply off the top of your head?

Woohoo!!! I have annulatus fry!

[whuntley]

Tyrone,

The location "Monrovia" is misleading, as it is just a shipping point, with collections from almost anywhere in the general area.

A rather colorful strain came in, in 1974, with that designation, and was maintained in the hobby for many, many years. We lost them in the US, when Wayland Lee and Robert Nhan unexpectedly dropped them and others were not to be found. AFAIK, they are still being maintained in Holland and probably Germany.

Most of the Monrovias in the hobby, here, are not the colorful strain with red in all lower fins as well as the pectorals. There was a bit of blue in the dorsal, and the usual red and blue in the caudal. Much more colorful than the usual ANN.

The original fish can be seen in photos by Tony Terceira and in Radda and Purzl, p 19. I once suggested we call these "Monrovia Red" to distinguish them from those drab/dull collections with the same name.

Watch for fast growers. They will quickly start to be predators on little sister if you aren't quick with the chinese soup spoon (medicine dropper?) to move them out. They grow quickly, at first and will take bbs fairly soon. That is when growth varies the most, and predation starts. [Sort by size, or your sex ratio may stink.] Yours may be more uniform size, developing in damp peat.

Use a so-called "natural" setup, for the eggs do not tolerate any handling at all, I have found. Collecting from mops is certain frustration, I suspect.

They seemed to need much softer water than I would have expected for a coastal species. Wayland did best with them, in his <50 ppm SF water. I think Robert used RO to temper his harder San Jose water. I know I did it in Santa Clara. [I now have perfect ANN water and no Monrovia Reds to raise in it. ]

Best breeding tank is a medium critter keeper with some floaters (Water Sprite?) and some boiled fibrous peat. They will spawn in the latter, and babies appear like magic in the meniscus. Spoon them out at night, using a flashlight (torch, to you Brit-influenced folk), to make the reflective head spot visible.

Floating plants seem to discourage their tendency to jump out of their tank.

Wright

[TyroneGenade]

Just a quick up date...

I have about 20 fry seperated over 3 tubs: 8, 6 and 6 fry each. They are currently eating vinegar eels and seem to be growing well.

I'm very hopeful for the future.:-)

[RonWill]

Tyrone,
It looks like you're off to a great start and I wish you well.

My previous line stopped abruptly and have lost it but will make do with aquarium strain for now. The Monrovia Reds, if you ever get your hands on them, is outta of this world and something to be cherished.

Here are 2 recently acquired male LFS ANNs.


sharing their cube-tank home with a small group of Poecilocharax weitzmani.


Good luck with the tinies!!

[nonamethefish]

Interesting. Axelrod says that annulatus are prone to die out when inbred. I don't know, but he does say plenty of stuff about killies that isn't necessarily correct(at this time) either. Book is Exotic Tropical Fishes Expanded Edition.

I have a few ANN myself. Haven't seen Monrovia but these are already quite nice. The finnage is larger than what I've seen in many photos and they love to show off.

Btw Ronwill maybe start a sperate thread for the Poecilocharax?








Hopefully when Tyrone's grow up we can see some photos!

[retro_gk]

Ron, how long have you had the Epiplatys and Poecilocharax together? I remember reading a spawning account of the latter which mentioned their being fed live guppies as the trigger for spawning.

[RonWill]

Hi Rahul,
The 12" cube was originally intended as a spawning setup solely for a group of 7 Poecilocharax weitzmani but I didn't expect them to be so elusive and always hiding. [heck, it was almost like looking into an 'empty tank']

I introduced a group of 10 Microrasboras sp 'Galaxy' to make them more sociable but that frustrated me to no end because now, even the Galaxy are hiding with them.

Ok, so since I was out of annulatus, I decided to dumped 40 LFS ANNs with them and for the past few weeks, everything is cool. No jumping crispie ANNs and no hiding weitzmani. I see all of them scurrying during feeding time and have no immediate plans to breed them yet but will consider the guppy-fry method when the time comes. If you can get hold of that spawning account, drop me a link. Thanks!

Back to ANNs... these fellas have taken well to prepared foods, plus the occasional live daphnia. So far, I've used Tim Addis's granules, artificial daphnia micro-pellets and crushed Hikari Carnivore tabs. It works, so long as we don't over pamper them exclusively on live foods.

[TyroneGenade]

Hi all,

From the 17 fry I reported last year I have 1 pair left. They spawn but nothing ever comes of the spawn. Anyone have an suggestions? It is a big tank (40L) with plants all over. There are shrimp the tank. Do you think they may be eating the eggs?

The temperature is 25degC, the water soft and acidic.

I got some peat with eggs of Epiplatus annulatus Monrovia Harbel (the ones with red fins) and have about 5 fry. I'm hoping for better luck with those...

Regards

[stoker]

Tyrone,

Try the natural set-up as Wright says it s the best way the eggs seem to be very delicate . I use this method soft 40-50 ppm acid pH 6ish water temp about 74-76 depends on how effective the exhaust fan is in the fish-house, had the temp up to 90 before now , but that`s the air temp not the tanks. Still manage to breed Diapterons in these conditions without too many problems.
I don`t even bother to fish out any fry , if you have plenty of floating plants they have lots of hiding places. Use Indian fern (water sprite) and duck weed.
Use infusoria as a first food I use green water cupful daily and just feed the parents as normal.
Hope this helps


Mike

[Al Baldwin]

I fully agree with keeping ANN in a well planted tank with plenty of surface plants.
It appears that the small to medium sized fish will eat the very small and newly hatched fry so plenty of cover is called for.

Here is a picture of the ANN strain I purchased from Toyin Ojo.....his picture from Aquabid:

[TyroneGenade]

Hi,

The current natural setup I'm using isn't working... so now I'm going to try something more hands on.

I have some long fibred peat moss and will setup a small tank for them to spawn over. Maybe I will get some fry yet!

Thanks for the help.

P.S. I can't get Indian fern to grow! I feel so inept. Used to grow like weeds.

[stoker]

Can`t figure that out , would try a big hand-full of JAVA MOSS in the tank at the same time. Give them a few weeks in the tank and move them to another set-up if you have the room. Have been told that there is a strain of indian fern that roots this may be what you have , had problems with that strain but the plantlets that float are normally ok if you get it going in the substrate.

Mike

[Al Baldwin]

Freshly hatched ANN tend to hang at the surface (meniscus) to feed on micro live food and are very difficult to see.
My ANN never go below the midpoint of the tank so the use of peat for spawning is very interesting.
The first time I saw a newly hatched ANN fry was with the use of a
hand lense and I was amazed at how tiny they are.

[stoker]

I agree with Al on this the fry are tiny , that`s why I use infusoria(green water) daily. In fact I have a modified sponge filter that kind of floats in the hope that the micro food is held in it and the fry??? can graze from it as they want/need
Don`t think I have ever found eggs in the lower part of the tank always in floating plant roots or in a big bit of floating Java Moss.
I would still advise not picking the eggs , just let nature take its course.


Mike