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I bought two pairs of these White Tipped Bentosi Tetras, which are very closely related to the far more common Rosy Tetra, from Steve’s shop in April. I was looking for something to help get me through the third level of the club’s breeders scheme which was out of my usual ‘comfort zone’. (I’ve done all the catfish I’m allowed, and have to diversify into different families.) Characins being a virtually new group to me, of course I consulted the "the oracle", Mr Vaissiere*. (*Alan Vaissiere is an enthusiastic and very experienced breeder of tropical fish who really enjoys the challenge of breeding "difficult" fish. Also, as a member of Preston and District A.S. he was the first one to pass 1,000 points in the Breeders' Programme, for which he was given a bottle of whisky by the society).   (They are certainly very beautiful Tetras and very easy to tell apart as these two excellent photos show, for which I must thank a very kind French aquarist.) After a good chat with Alan, I managed to glean some very useful tips on how to do them;- 1. Set them up in a small tank with a spawning mesh on the bottom, and a mop in one corner. (My tank is about 12 x 10 x 10 ins. And I’m also lucky that the water where I live comes out of the tap at ph7 and virtually 0 degrees hardness. I did also add a cupful of water that had been sitting over some ordinary garden peat for some while and was just a bit tea coloured.) 2. Put just one pair into the tank and leave the tank completely covered. After setting them up check morning and night by using a small but powerful torch to see if there are any signs of white eggs or tiny fry spooked and darting about in the light. I did as instructed by "Guru Vas", and checked morning and night, although I must admit, as in the words of the great one, my torch was (put politely) "not too clever"! I had expected almost immediate results, perhaps 12, 24 or at most 36 hours, but I was disappointed because as far as I could see nothing was happening. I left them about 5 days then phoned A.V.) 3. Alan suggested that they may have spawned but after the first day or so any unfertilized eggs will probably have gone, eaten by bacteria, and any fry will be reluctant to move and will be either on the bottom or attached to the side using up their egg sac before becoming free swimming and starting to take food. (I removed the fish, the mop, and the mesh, then tried to look for any signs of fry. At first there didn’t seem as if they’d done anything so I ‘swished (that’s a technical term) the water around a bit. It was difficult to tell at first, because all the small particles of peat from the peat water that I’d added were swirling round the tank, but as they started to settle I felt sure that something moved, but not with the flow of the water. I disturbed the water again, and again saw something move. I took out my trusty plastic pipette and attempted to suck up the fry that I’d seen move. I gently squirted the sucked up water into a dish and looked for signs of life, both with the naked eye and through the computer microscope using a low power (x10) magnification. After three attempts at this I finally got what I was looking for – But it was tiny, and very difficult to see. The yolk sac just looked like a tiny speck of grit (as small as the full stops on this page), and the rest of the body was virtually transparent. Not to put too fine a point on it I have to say I did feel like the proverbial “dog with two thingies”. Obviously I’d really dropped lucky because the eggs had not long hatched. Using 60x magnification, I was able to get the following pictures as the fry developed.     Once the fry were just about free swimming I added half a small jam-jar of good, (non-smelling) infusoria water, still keeping the tank fully covered. A couple of days later when they were all swimming freely in the upper half of the tank I began adding newly hatched brine shrimp daily.  You can see the belly is now pink with brineshrimp, and the silvery swim bladder has formed. They can dart about really quickly now and raising them on from this stage is pretty straightforward. Just regular clean water changes and gradually increasing amounts and size of food. Summary As a first attempt at characins I would say that raising the fry did not seem particularly difficult. There didn’t seem to be many losses, and the growth rate of all was pretty consistent. I ended up with about 70 sub-adult fish. Update December 2007;- Just spawned the "youngsters". They laid about 36 hrs after being put into the spawning tank. All in all I would recommend White Tip Bentosi as well worth a try ! Copyright; Text and Photos; John Dean. Adults photos from a French aquarist who is content to remain anonymous. ("Many thanks to John for this, his first contribution to my site. Also for his success with such close up photography which is a first in my Articles section!" Ivor) |
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