Loaches Online Forum

Having carried out quite a bit of maintenance on the River Tank earlier today, and rather disheartened that for the 2nd time in a row there were no more Sewellia fry to be found in the filter, I'm over the moon to report that I've just seen a young Sewellia fry in the main tank itself! I had just been photographing one of the adults who was posing on a cobble at the front of the tank, when something caught my eye on a leaf from one of the large Anubias clumps! I'd guess that the young Sewellia was about 1.5cm TL, which is the same size as the lone fry I rescued from the 2nd batch. It didn't hang around for long and I haven't been able to spot it since, but it's in there somewhere.

Emma

Great news!! Where there is one, there are probably more.

Congratulations Emma, sounds like removing the danio's has done the trick

Mad Duff wrote:Congratulations Emma, sounds like removing the danio's has done the trick

Yes, to a degree I think it has. There are still two adult Schistura balteata in there which are looking rather well-fed though:



Emma

Excellent!! This all sounds promising.

Those baltis need relocating. I bet they're worse predators than the Danios were.

Yesterday, I watched a baby cheni litterally swim right across the nose of an adult. The adult never even budged. I would suspect that Sewellia will leave babies alone too.

Martin.

I haven't managed to negotiate another tank yet , otherwise I would have moved the balteatas by now. I've had them so long and love them to pieces so I just couldn't get rid of them.

I have been wondering about something else though. I forgot to mention at the time of finding that lone fry from the 2nd batch in the filter, I found a dead female Sewellia lineolata in the tank. No obvious signs of what might have happened, and everything else was fine and has been fine since. I have to wonder whether I lost my main breeding female as she was quite a nice size and there haven't been any large broods in the filter since then. Most of my other females are quite a bit smaller so I'm unsure as to whether they are sexually mature yet.

Emma

Sorry to hear this

There is another possibility: as I recall, your spawns occurred during the heat waves. Maybe this is the required component (cf. recent posts from Germany).

Earlier on this evening I managed to capture a few pics of the aforementioned little Sewellia lineolata that has been lucky enough to avoid the attentions of the Schistura balteata in the main River Tank. He/she was out and about grazing on an Anubias leaf at the front left hand side of the tank. Pics aren't brilliant, but show he/she is doing great :









Emma

congratulations Emma.

Good luck with the tank negotiations. maybe if you go on about it for long enough, Steve will end up saying "yes dear" so as you shut up?

Superb! Great to see the little chap doing so well.