I have 2 female and 4 male C. variegatus in a 40 gal. breeder tank. I have added aquarium salt 1-2 Tbsp to 5 gal. Substrate is 1 mm. sand/gravel about 2' deep. I have some life plants (working on more). I would like to know how to get them to spawn inside. I have yarn mops. Should they float? or be sank?

I'm fairly sure that in the wild they tend to spawn in very shallow water, usually around plants or algae. Your breeder tank should be fine place as the tank is not very deep. I had some spawn in my 46 gallon tank back in 2008. However, this tank was very deep (compared to your breeder tank) and they spawned on the very bottom of the tank in the roots of java ferns and some clumps of java moss. So maybe you could try a floating mop as well as a mop that sinks. The fish can choose for themselves. My fish spawned a few hours after a large water change once the tank lights went off (with room lights on)(I think the new water was cooler than the tank water if I remember correctly). After spawning, I never tried to raise them and most eggs got picked off by other tankmates, so I cannot comment further.

Edited by UncleWillie, 09 August 2011 - 02:31 PM.

When I got mine to spawn I would place some yarn mops on the bottom and only leave the parents in the tank for 24-48 hours and then remove them. When I would leave them in the tanks they would eat most of the eggs and I might find one or two young fish.
When I would remove the parents I would get many more fry per breeding. Everything sounds right for your group to breed. I know several other people that have been successful with spawning them in large rummbermaid tubs by placing the adults in the tub for 24 hours with the bottom covered with mops and then removing them. Good luck.

Last night I placed two hyacinth plants in the tank with long flowing rooy systems. ? are their eggs sticky, can I remove the plants without losing the eggs?

I have 2 female and 4 male C. variegatus in a 40 gal. breeder tank. I have added aquarium salt 1-2 Tbsp to 5 gal. Substrate is 1 mm. sand/gravel about 2' deep. I have some life plants (working on more). I would like to know how to get them to spawn inside. I have yarn mops. Should they float? or be sank?

I guesss I'll do what I do every year. Do my best to keep them around till summer comes and put them out side in my pool(s). Filled with plants from near by lakes and my water lettuce.

Don't know if the eggs are adhesive or not. Probably, since people have spawned them in mops.

Since they're probably in spawning mode, now, you can also try again.

What I do for most killies and lots of cyprinids is to put them in a bare tank. I add a tub full of stones pebbles and stones with lots of spaces and crevices between them. Then I take a big hunk of java moss from one of the other tanks, and then weigh it down on top of the tub with one of the stones.

I put the adults in the tank, bumping up the heater to the high 70s/low 80s, depending on the room temperature. Within two days to a week (whenever I get around to it) I take the adults out and wait for the fry to show up. At about this time, it's a good idea to seed the tank with vinegar eels and paramecium.

When I got mine to spawn I would place some yarn mops on the bottom and only leave the parents in the tank for 24-48 hours and then remove them. When I would leave them in the tanks they would eat most of the eggs and I might find one or two young fish.
When I would remove the parents I would get many more fry per breeding. Everything sounds right for your group to breed. I know several other people that have been successful with spawning them in large rummbermaid tubs by placing the adults in the tub for 24 hours with the bottom covered with mops and then removing them. Good luck.

Are there any breeding reports floating around out there for C. varigatus? I see there may be something in an old AC. I'm playing around with a few sheeps. Got some tetra spawning brushes we had lying around in the tank with them that they use for cover, but will have to make some mops. Also a kitty litter substrate since I was skeptical that it worked so I wanted to see if pupfish would dig around in it and make the water cloudy (It works great!). Any idea of an optimal ppt salinity for breeding?

Thanks!

I've bred hundreds of them in nearly bare concrete pools of fullstrength seawater. I never really paid much attention to how they did it, but I think they must put their eggs under rocks and shells, since that's all they had in my pools. We put some in a "touch tank" at the Gulfarium for algae control and they spawned nearly continuously.

A good friend had a self sustaining Sheepshead tank for years and offered me her experience & pictures. She started with 2 males and three females from mailorder in fall of 2008. In an acrylic 5 gal. with gravel, driftwood, watersprite, java moss, plastic plants, a small outside power filter and approximately 1 Tbs. of synthetic sea salt to the gallon. Food was a variety of flakes. The males colored up quickly and set up territories on opposite sides of a driftwood branch. They courted the females continuously and when ripe they would press together into the gravel and deposit eggs. Within a few months there were a number of 1/2 inch fry living with the adults. In the winter of 2008 she upgraded the approximately 18 sheepsheads to a 15 gallon aquarium with similar conditions and added a sponge over the filter intake to keep fry out. Water changes were 30% to 50% every other week. This tank quickly got overcrowded with the sheepsheads and they were again moved to a 29 gallon. The empty 15 gallon was left running and quickly hatched out many more fry from eggs left in the gravel. She observed interesting fry behavior at this point. They were hopping around on the bottom or sitting on the bottom motionless. Like gobys. They stayed bottom dwellers till a size of about 1/3 inch. And she notes that the adults rarely feed off the bottom of the tank. So food dropping there, and the fry, were mostly ignored. However the fry were quite cannibalistic among themselves. The sheepsheads kept going untill a disease wiped them all out after 3 years. She wanted to stress that the adult males did well together at all times. No damage ever came from their constant sparring and displaying. Here are some pics of her selfsustaining sheepsheads, adults and fry!