Elegans and finally some nijsseni success!

Normally we don't see too many real Peruvian elegans in Danish shops; most are CW44 imported via Manaus, so when I saw some I had to get them.

I've looked at my group of Corydoras elegans frequently over the last couple of years, but I always put something else in the breeding tank until recently when I decided finally to give them a go.

Sexing Corydoras elegans is quite easy; both dorsal fin pattern and bodyshape is different between the sexes.

Male left - female right.

Female.

From above; female left, male right.

Into the tank they went along with frozen bloodworms, a big waterchange with cold rainwater and some Cattappa-leaves. Two days later a few eggs were seen where the current had swept the tank floor of sand.

I collected the eggs and incubated them in a plastic container with an airline without an airstone. This gives gentler, bigger bubbles.

The eggs are very small. Only CW08-eggs are as small, at least from memory.

A few of the eggs hatched, but I lost the fry quite quicly, probably due to forgetting to add a few ramshorn snails to the hatching container.

Hopefully I will have the chance again soon! At the moment they are staying in the breeding tank for more attempts.

Small eggs!

A few biotope shots of a place we caught numerous C. elegans on my trip to Peru in 2008:

 Fresh caught.

Loricariidae-nut Erlend Bertelsen (Norway) in black shirt, me in dark blue in the water.

Another thing worth mentioning is that my Corydoras nijsseni spawned again and I had a good hatch rate. Hopefully I can raise some this time!

So far they are with some Danio margaritatus fry in a fry container eating well.

Nijsseni fry.

Campoma-colonies!

Until recently, many of my wingei have been kept in single-phenotype tanks, but to free some tanks to other projects and because it is more "natural", I decided to merge my Campoma 2011-phenotypes into two colonies.
It is easy to split them up again if I decide to do so; Campoma females seem not to matter too much when it comes to phenotype; so far all my line-breeding attemts have proved that the male decides the outcome.

Sadly I lost a few phenotypes recently. I hope to add them (and more) to my collection again over the summer!

Colony one consists of these phenotypes:

Campoma No. 43 - Lavender.

Campoma No. 46 - Wild Yellow Tiger.

Campoma No. 28 - Red!

Campoma No. 31 - Blue Snake.

Colony two consists of these:

No. 48.

No. 45.

No. 25.

Breeding Sawbwa resplendens

Sawbwa resplendens remains to be one of the absolute prettiest fish for me. I kept and bred them some years back and recently I found them in one of my favourite fish-shops, Unimati in Randers, Denmark. Both sexes were well represented, so 3 pairs were taken home (along with several other interesting species, but more on that later!).

Coming from Lake Inle in Myanmar, this species likes "cooler" water around 18-20C. and a pH in the higher end (pH 7-8) and quite hard water.

Sawbwa resplendens males are stunning!

Conditioned with live food like newly hatched Artemia, fresh caught Daphnia and Cyclops along with various dry foods the females were bulging after a few days. All 3 pairs were placed in a 16 litre tank with water straight from the tap; pH around 7,5 and 400-450 ms/cm. Temperature around 20C.

A small sponge filter and a good amount of mops were added. I previously used floating Anubias for spawning medium, but wanted to thy mops instead to see if egg-eating could be minimized.

After a couple of days the mops remained empty. Perhaps sunken mops were not a good idea, even if they were piled up to almost reach the surface? A handfull of Anubias were added and within an hour, action began!

Pictures from the spawning tank.

Eggs on the underside of an Anubias-leaf.

The Anubias with eggs were incubated in a plastic container with water from the tank. No anti-fungal remedies or anything else. After a few days fry appeared:

The fry are tiny and need very small food-items. I use JBL NobilFluid and dried egg-yolk.
After some time, babanaworms and Artemia nauplii is introduced. The growth of Sawbwa fry is so slow you almost don't believe it, but seeing a swarm of youngsters makes it worthwhile!

I also too a few pictures in my photo-tank:

Pair; female above, male below.

Colours!

Female.

Oseibo and Slush Orange!

It has been silent from here for a while due to various reasons, but things are slowly moving forward. I have done some changes in my stock and added some new species to the collection. See current species list for updates. I need to look at something else than wingei in all my tanks. They are still important, but I want something else to work with too.

I have also put some wingei together in colonies rather than single-phenotype tanks. More on that later!

A few beauties from Laguna de los Patos still being maintained as single-types are these nice ones derived from the collections made by Armando Pou. Both have been in the hands of Shimpei Taniguchi who did a great job! They are some of my absolute favourites!

Oseibo, collected in 2006 and selected by Shimpei Taniguchi.

Slush Orange, a fish bred by Shimpei from Adrian HD's 2004 Snake, Top Black Bar. This one is not showing so much "comma"...

...while this is showing more "comma".

Guppies...Carupano has coloured up!

When I first got my Carupano-guppies I took some photos that did not show their full potential. Now they have coloured up considerably and started reproducing. To this day it is one of the most beautyful wild-type P. reticulata I have ever kept! I am really happy that Phillip Voisin and Co. brought them home!

Nice tail!

Size-variation in males.

Furthermore I have updated the species list with quite a few changes!