Loaches Online Forum

Last night my largest male and female Sewellia (2.5 and 2.25" respectively) were really getting romantic. He was chasing her all around the tank until they met on the front glass, and then did that sewellia love dance in the current. I see this a couple of times a month or so, but have yet to see any young.
This time I noticed many of the danios (kyathits and burma sp.) as well as the white clouds, were lined up in the current behind the fish. I had never noticed this while the fish were spawning before. So, I am wondering if this is why I have not seen any young sewellia yet.

Sounds suspiciously like they are gobbling the eggs as fast as the Loaches are producing them

Danios are awesome egg and fry predators Jim. With what we know of Sewellia spawn scattering methods I would expect it to be pretty much a free for all for these guys. I would highly doubt that there's much chance of getting any eggs survive while these dithers are present.

Martin.

You are very close to breed sewellia! Get the danios out of the Tank an put in some gravel instead inside. The sewellia fry will appear after one week - sudenly. The gravel will give the fry cover for the firts days.

keep the fingers cross, you have don several things right!

x

There is plenty of gravel and stones in the tank already. I would think that a few eggs would get by the danios, but maybe not. Too bad they don't bury their eggs like P. cheni and L. disparis. I had plenty of those babies survive the dithers. But there were only whiteclouds in the tank at that time. No danios.
I may just have to move them.

Interesting...

Would a mix of white clouds and brilliant rasboras be sufficiently bad too?
(they are nowhere as efficient as danios, but can anything get past them?)

I moved my Danio sp. hikari shoal out of the river tank because I had the same suspicions. Although by that point, I'd seen a few fry, it wasn't until after I'd rehomed the danios that the largest batch (13) was discovered....

Emma

An update:
The sewellia were at it again last night. Unfortunately, so were the dithers.
That means the turn around time on spawning is as little as 12 days. Just a little shorter than it is with chenis and disparis.
This time, I saw what looked like a small puff of smoke. I'm sure that was the eggs and sperm. The eggs must be much smaller than chenis and a bit smaller than disparis that are about the size of a ( . ). I couldn't actually see them, because they were released in the bubbles in the strongest current flow. Lets hope the dithers missed a few.

Fingers and fins crossed for you Jim!

Nice one Jim, I hope you manage to get some fry

Even if the eggs do get past them, isn't it pretty likely that danios and the other dithers would eat the fry?

There is probably a good chance of that. Although, when chenis and disparis were breeding in the tank, the white clouds didn't seem to do much to the population.