Reply To: Nervous behavior
Well I’m pleased to report the following:
This morning I saw actual spawning happening, AND I saw two free-swimming fry as well.
The spawning seemed to start a few minutes after I switched their light on this morning. This has always got the male going – he darts all around the aqaurium quite quickly for a few minutes after the light comes on, but this morning the females were darting too, and after only a few minutes I saw them actually doing the “clench” thing in the java moss and grass I have growing in the tank. Some VERY tiny orange things were on the grass aftewards, but I’m not sure if that was sand/dirt that was already there or eggs (and there were only 2).
Yesterday was the day I first saw the first fry swimming about, and yesterday I also added 3 chemicals, which may (or may not) have caused the fish to more actively breed (they’re really going at it like rabbits today): Liquifry, TetraAqua Nitrate minus (my tap water has 50ppm nitrate, and I’ve never gotten it lower, so I added some of this in hopes of getting rid of some thread algae I have, and also I added some hair algae remover. As I said, I’ve not empirically measured their courtship behaviour, so not sure if they’re REALLY spawning more actively this morning, but it sure seems that way, and also, it could have nothing to do with the chemicals, but I’ll put it out there to see what others notice.