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Re: Re: NFC: RE: How to Breed F chrysotus

 Hey Folks,
					    I'm back from a 2 week holiday and am preparing to reply to all
inquiries over the next couple of days.
					 F. chrysotus are one of the most beautiful fish in my tanks and seem
eager to breed often. Here are some observations I've made over the past
couple of months. This is the first time I have attempted to breed anything,
so these are observations and not a tell all fact sheet.
					I have noticed that the fish in a community tank that has a longer photo
period, lights on about fourteen hours a day, and a regular diet of live food
supplemented with beefheart seem to do the most spawning. The "lights on" also
slightly raises the temp of the water, a possilble contributing factor. 
					Behaviour just prior to spawning activity was most entertaining. Though I
only noticed this in the community tank, the female would "slap" at the suface
of the water several times, and then begin the chase and dance sequence with
the male.
					The male's body was darkened, espescialy at the gill area and his red
markings really intensified.
He would follow his mate throughout the tank,back and forth through the
vegitation, cavorting and dancing over her head, and then suddenly, in a
wiggly flash, would settle on a piece of vegitation, cabomba, he would curl
his tail under her as she deposted the egg/eggs. This takes all of a
splitsecond to occur and is repeated over and over for about an hour. When in
the community tank, the couple where followed around by some of the other fish
who greedily ate up the fresh spawn. I placed them in thier own tank, using
water from the community tank, and after a few days they resumed thier fun.
There was a little picking at thier own eggs, but this was minimal and I
removed them to the community tank when they seemed finished. 
				This event occured a couple of days before I left on holiday and there is
no sign of fry in the spawning tank yet. However, I was only able to get a
friend with no experience and no appreciation of aquaria to simply feed the
tanks every few days while I was gone, much less turn the lights on and off on
a daily basis.
				Now for some questions/conjecture which I will investigate further after I
have moved into a new apartment within the next couple of months and begin
breeding the melanistic.
				While in the community tank, they seemed to prefer depositing in the
floating vegitation , although resorted to the java moss on the bottom when
they ran out of room. Is there a correlation to the hatch rate of the eggs in
the floating masses at the surface where there is greater oxygen available? Do
ghost shrimp feed on the eggs? What does one feed fry? Has anyone else
observed the slapping behaviour?
			Well I have been at this machine most the afternoon and nwell into the eve
and it is now after 1 am.
say goodnight jonboy

Daryl