Ram-Ashwin@cs.yale.edu (Ashwin Ram) (04/16/88)
Our albino Corydoras aenus catfish spawned a couple of days ago. Since this is
relatively rare in an aquarium, I thought I'd write about it. The temperature
was 77 F, and pH 7.0, although it had risen to 7.2 that day for some reason. I
don't know if that triggered the process, but the female had been egg-laden for
about a month already. Her stomach had the characteristic red spot. The male
developed a red stripe running from his stomach down the center of his tail,
when viewed from underneath.
Both male and female were swimming very very actively, rushing around near the
glass and rubbing bodies frequently. The male started cleaning a section of the
glass, as well as some leaves on nearby plants. He would press his body hard
against the glass and rotate it from side to side in a polishing motion, in
between rushing back and forth over that region with the female.
Then they both moved away from that region and started mating. The female dug
her barbels in the gravel, as if rooting for food. The male rubbed his barbels
over the back of the female, then came around the side and curled his body
around the female in a hard-to-describe position, sort of with the female's face
buried in his breast. After about half a minute, all motion ceased and they lay
still for another 15 seconds or so. Then the male moved away.
The female arched her body, closed her pectoral fins, and lay about 16 eggs into
a cup formed by her pectoral fins. She then swam with them for about a minute,
holding them in her fins, going over the regions that the male had previously
cleaned. Finally she started sticking them to the glass, two at a time, until
they were all deposited in a small region of the glass.
They repeated this every 10 to 30 minutes until approximately 150 eggs had been
deposited. The entire process took about half a day.
-- Ashwin.
ARPA: Ram-Ashwin@cs.yale.edu
UUCP: {decvax,ucbvax,harvard,cmcl2,...}!yale!Ram-Ashwin
BITNET: Ram@yalecsRam-Ashwin@cs.yale.edu (Ashwin Ram) (04/16/88)
In article <27272@yale-celray.yale.UUCP>, Ram-Ashwin@cs (Ashwin Ram) writes: > Our albino Corydoras aenus catfish spawned a couple of days ago. ^^^^^ Sorry, that should have been "aeneus". This is the albino variety of the "bronze catfish". -- Ashwin.