Spawning of Jewels

[angel]

My red jewels have spawned a couple of times now and the thing that started them was, I had offered them some brine shrimp, holding a cube of it in my fingers and watching them come take it out. I was amused. Then needed to do a partial water change and used cooler water because I felt the tank was a little too warm. They turned bright red and next thing they were spawning! What I'd read since then is that cooler water makes them think it's the rainy season and they spawn at the rainy season. In addition, if it were rainy, common sense says that extra food will fall into the water as it slips off the banks. So the treat of the brine shrimp couldn't have hurt either. They're substrate spawners, though, so I don't know that it would hold true for mouthbrooders.

[jon carman]

It does to an extent. You are about to have a small jewel farm in your house.

[angel]

Not exactly. They ate the second batch and I turned a blind eye. Now they're in with the aggressive bunch downstairs so although they're in breeding colors again I don't think the eggs will survive if they do spawn again. And yeah it was difficult to let them eat the babies, but what would I do with all these jewels? There are easily over 200 from the first batch.

[nebelhund]

I was shocked at the number of fry you had in their little tank when I came over a couple weeks ago. I had no idea their spawns were so prolific!

Good luck with the current batch.

[angel]

They ate the current batch too. I hate that. I kind of wish I hadn't bought them because they spawn way too often and then eat them. If I pull the eggs and raise them they'll just spawn again. I can't rest them. And they are aggressive so splitting them up with the others is just not an option. They're just so pretty! And those babies are still doing great, btw. Sassy little things already!

[mousecreek]

Try lowering the water temperature. My prolific Jewels (H. lifalili) stopped spawning when I lowered the temp to 72-74 F. They still eat well and are very healthy, but no youngsters to worry about. Except for the ones that are growing out.

[angel]

Strange that would work, since cooler water initiated their spawn. Is it a gradual decrease that makes the difference? BTW I was wrong--they didn't eat the current batch. Just hid them very well. They were free-swimming yesterday.

[jon carman]

If you start getting to many you can put a synodontis in there. I kinda know you wouldn't think that as an option, but it is natural population control.

[angel]

That's probably gonna happen anyway. They're in with two red zebras and three kenyi. All are nice to eachother but those babies will look like lunch.