Aus Trio Unproductive

[daguldfisher]

How come my aus trio yield is like an egg per 3 days? I see them doing the dance but at the end of the day I sometimes dont get an egg. Most of the times I get halves. The eggs still transparent but not round anymore as if they had been bitten. Any ideas?

[daguldfisher]

Now I know. It turned out that one of the supposedly female for the trio is actually a juvenile male. It just showed its colors on Monday. It basically eats all the eggs from the active pair. Which also explains why the female looks battered. 2 males harassing her without a substitute for her. Gonna move him out today to my main tank together with other fish for the meantime. Or should I just seperate the female to give her a rest?

[RonWill]

For group breeding, I prefer to use 2 trios (not reversed trios), lots of moss and yarn spawning mops. Mops are removed twice weekly, or weekly, depending on how prolific the adults are (or how hardworking I am). It is not unusual for the extra males/females to pick on eggs but if mop is thick enough, sufficient number of eggs will remain safely hidden and water incubated in a separate takeaway tub.

My eyesight is not what it used to be and usually too tired to handpick eggs, so the mops go into incubation together and make a label indicating collection date. Make enough mops to rotate between use, drying or microwaving for other species.

Andy, if your AUSs are just starting to color up, then they are still very young. Egg count will be low and sometimes infertile until they are more 'experienced'.

[daguldfisher]

When I bought them we did not know that the less coloured one was another male. All the while I thought it was 2 female and a male. Even Eric did not know. Now I must buy 2 more females as the female look dying now. No more activities. The mouth seems damaged. How can I help her recover?

[an1l]

Andy what do you mean by damaged ? Seperate the female for sure, put a little salt in her container and take well care of her for a while. She should recover quickly. Feed her BBS for a while and she should be fine.

And like Ron said, if your fish are just starting to color up, then they are very young - Even though that's odd because Australe can be sexed very early on. Females don't have colors in dorsal and caudal fins. It shouldn't be easy to mix them up.

[daguldfisher]

The female was not able to close her mouth and seemed like missing some teeth. I think she was chased so much that she bumped so much to the glass. She died already, did not eat. I was feeding her smaller grindal worms but did not want to eat even when separated. Was too late with the bbs.
The other male started with very very little amount of color on the fins and the fins were always folded. When it got its colours, suddenly boasting its colored fins around the tank.

[apistomaster]

You female may be sick but if all the fish are healthy their first spawns produce smaller eggs and have a high infertility rate.
A. australe begin to produce their best after they are 8 months old.