Tropical Fish Forums

[sepgundamrg]

OK I have recently changed my aquarium around and planted stuff ect ect to make the habitat more natural. Since then, and especialy after todays water change, they are very active day or night. Today I witnessed them "playing", but at a closer glance it didn'y seem like playing. I know there are few accounts of people breeding them in captivity, but they seemed to be spawning. I could not find any information on their spawning habits witha quick google search. They were laying side by side in the micro sword, and would get up swim around, meet up again but one would aproach the other from behind. The one in the rear would tough its mouth.whiskers to the genetalia(sp?) of the other one, then they would swim off again, and the other one would approach from the rear. After doing this for several minutes they large one went off into hiding and the small one went to different patches of micro sword would lay down for a second, get up and go to another patch. After it went to a few patches, the big one got out again, laid next to it, and they started again. I watched this for around half an hour.....could I be very lucky have spawning raphael catfish? I have sexed them and they are male and female....... I am so excited I can not sleep I hope for a semi-fast reply.
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My tanks
http://www.aquahobby.com/board/viewtopic.php?t=55885

[sepgundamrg]

OK I found some information, not on the raphael specificaly but on catfish from the area. One way to coax spawning is to do a water change, let the water get low and cool down, then put cooler water in the tank to imitate the start of the rainy season when most amazonian fish spawn. Iperformed a large water change today, and after I drained out 6-=7-% of my water I turned the heater off so it didn't break. I then had to clean out a bucket so that ment boiling a lot of water. I also changed the water in my grandmas frog tank(mine when I get a larger tank), and cleaned out an old tank that the frogs are going into. I got all of their stuff done when I realised I hadn't put water back in my fish tank. I warmed up a little water on the stove, and filled it rest of the bucket up with cold tap water. I added dechlorinator, waited a few minutes for it to work, and poured it in. I know it was colder than the current tank water, but I didn't want to wait much longer with shallow water in the tank. After this water change is when the fish got real active and "playfull". I noticed the realy strange swimming just a while ago...... I hope they are mating, but where would I put another fish that will grow to be 8 in?
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My tanks
http://www.aquahobby.com/board/viewtopic.php?t=55885

[Lord Steve0]

That'd be cool if they had spawned.
I only have one Raphael and I only saw him yesterday after over 3 months of not seeing him! Not sure what he gets up to in there but he seems happy enough. And he's grown too!