Rainbowfish Mailing List Archive: Re: [RML] breeding viable axelrod eggs

Hi Gary, thanks for these good hints. I am actually trying to find out w= hat factor works best. As the hardness is quite low in my area, I am increa= singit at the moment. The fishes are about 4,5 cm long and showing ful= l color. The males are attracting like crazy. I hope that fertility will in= crease when they are growing on.

About the natural habitat is only on= e reference, this is the article from G.R Allen in TFH 1982 if I remember r= ight. This species is found in only one small river about 40 km from Vanimo= in the Bewani mountains. Water was clear with light tannine tone. Not much= hardness. But all those factors can differ over the year, because the coll= ecting trips are mostly done in the dry season.

The fish didn't seem all that fertile to me either when I had them.&nb= sp; What hardness are you keeping them in? Since a lot of IJ/PNG is h= ard water perhaps increasing the hardness to ~ 200 ppm might help things.&n= bsp; If you're already there, oh well. Are we talking about at least = 2 inch fish or are these still real small? Young males don't always h= ave the process down and it takes a little maturity on their part to get it= right. The other factor that has helped me increase viability on sev= eral types of fish is to feed more live foods. It's amazing what good= feedings of live daphnia and mosquito larvae will do for egg production an= d viability. I don't remember whether the stream was a faster moving = or a slower moving stream but you might try moving the temps down to 75 deg= rees and increasing water movement/O2 values and see if that makes a differ= ence. Sometimes it's the little things that will get the male more in= tuned so that he'll do his job. Good luck with them as this really i= s a nice species. Too bad more people haven't gone into this area to = see just how much broader the location area really is. So many of the= se bows have just been collected from one area. The G. doryiti and pr= obably now the G. pseudoincisus areas are being expanded each time they loo= k in nearby lakes.