Spawning Devario sondhii

[BallAquatics]

Back in 2009, while at the at the American Cichlid Association convention, I was lucky enough to pick up a dozen of these fish from Mike Drawdy of Imperial Tropicals.

I’ve spawned them before, but that was several years ago and I found myself down to my last 5 fish.  After several attempts, it looked as though my females were hopelessly egg-bound.  As a last resort, I used an old breeders trick and put the fish into a breeder set-up just after a group of Danio roseus had finished spawning.  It seemed to do the trick!

Two days…..

Free swimming…..

6 weeks…..

8 weeks….. you can just begin to see the dark cleithral spot

10 weeks…..

Not the flashiest fish in the aquarium trade, but they have a very nice subtle beauty to them.

Dennis

[kim m]

Good trick

Congrats on the success!

[Matt]

Very nice Dennis! I have never heard of this trick before, what is the theory behind it?

[plesner]

Some 20+ years ago I witnessed what was surely breeding behaviour in Botia almorhae. This happened while a couple of mouthbrooding Bettas in the same tank were busy breeding. I’m sure they released some hormones or something similar into the water, which triggered the behaviour in the Botias.

It makes sense that using water in which a fairly close relative has just spawned will push some of the right buttons in another species, though I’ve never considered or even heard of this exact method.

[BallAquatics]

@Matt said:
Very nice Dennis! I have never heard of this trick before, what is the theory behind it?

Basically what plesner alluded to…..

The release of hormones, pheromones, or some other chemical(s) into the water aids in triggering the fish to spawn.  I don’t have any science to go with it or prove / disprove that it works, just an old fish breeders trick that I picked up somewhere over many years of fish keeping.

Dennis

[Matt]

Thanks guys, and it does make sense. In nature floodplain habitats must be full of such chemicals during the reproductive season.

[Author]

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