Ptychochromis oligacanthus

[seanwelsh1]

I have two pair of these spawning every 2 - 3 weeks.I have saved some babies but usually leave them to it !

[Klaus Steinhaus]

Nice photos and nice fish.

These fish are on the ACA conservation list (http://acaforum.com/index.php?act=attach&type=post&id=722) and are at risk in their natural habitat. It would be nice if you could spread as many fry as possible around to other hobbyists to help keeping the species inour tanks.

Thanks for sharing these pictures.

[sidguppy]

beautiful fish.

Klaus, this species is luckily one of the few Madagascarians wich isn't that hard to breed, so we'll keep it in existence.

it's some of the Paretroplus species and the unfortunate Ptychochromoides wich are in a much worse shape......if not already gone.

are you going to raise the fry separate Zigster? or are these in a tank of their own?

[seanwelsh1]

Sid,

I pulled all the fry out but they are hard to raise and seem to die quiet easy! . I have since had two further spawings which again i have pulled from the tank and continue to try and get this fellas up to a decent size so that i can freely distribute them

[Bas Pels]

Not related to madegascar fish, but once I had good results with a very big net, hanging inside the parent's tank. The fry -which would not have survived being moved to another tank did survive this treatment

[duanest]

Nice pics zigster
when mine 1st became free swimming, they were too small to eat artemia, so I pureed peas with tank water and pipetted the soup into the school for a few days until the grew a bit, the survival rate was much better.

[Vincent Fu]

I have had the same experience as duanest. Right after the fry become free swimming I feed them crushed pellets for a few days until they can take baby brine shrimp.

[dogofwar]

Great idea - fresh or frozen peas?

Nice pics zigster
when mine 1st became free swimming, they were too small to eat artemia, so I pureed peas with tank water and pipetted the soup into the school for a few days until the grew a bit, the survival rate was much better.

[duanest]

I used frozen, but warmed them up a little in hot tap water, and pureed them with warm tank water after squeezing out of the shells.