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I came home from work this evening in a right crappy mood.....first day back at work......crappy telly night on the way....things looks grim.

I turned on the room light, pottered about fer 5-10 minutes to let my fish get used to the lights before turning on the tank light. When I came into the room and turned the tank lights on I was horrified!!!! I could clearly see a bit of fungused food lying beside the main cave of my Zebbies. I instantly thought I was overfeeding and had a look around for any more uneaten bits of food. Phew, there seem to be no more (or not that I could see).

So I put my glasses on to take a closer look at this mysterious uneaten bit of food. As I lean down closer and closer to the tank what should happen........the bit of foosty food moved...then again....then again. It finally dawned on me....this is not a bit of white fungused food....this is a BABY ZEBRA!!!!!

I'm shaking like a leaf here!! This is great!! What a way to start a new year!!!!!!

Whe-hey..................GO ON SON!!!


WHO's The DADDY!!!!!

Excellent news mate. I'm excited for you too. It's absolutely amazing when it happens, especially if you've been trying forages, and then it just happens out fo the blue!! Cheers for letting us know. Keep us posted, and keep an eye out fo others!!

rob

I'll keep you all posted Fingers crossed there are more inside the cave, the male is still in there.

Congratulations are in order indeed! Good luck with the rest of the batch

Congratulations Dr P. What a lovely new years present.
How long have you had your pair?. Did you notice that the male had trapped the female in the cave,prior to this event?.
Regards,
Des.

good job dr. p

Congrats!

And thanks for leading us on there with that intro...It was like a short story and with a great ending. So you're going to write an article for the Spawn section? So you can tell us what you did to get a spawn? Any secrets? Were you trying a rainy season? How long have you had them? Sorry for all the questions, but nice to see another success story.

Congradulations!!!!! Very well done Dr. P. A wonderful way to start the new year. More details are in order. I bet that turned your crappy day into an awesome day. congrats again.

Fantastic!!! Well done Dr P, the panama cigar is in the post. Now come down off the ceiling and tell us what you did. I thought you said that you had 4 males? Come on stop holding out, when did you get the female(s) or was it a case of mistaken identity.

Well I'm off to check my tank for any fungused food, you never know.

Ok, more details.

Des wrote:How long have you had your pair?.

Had 4 of them since October last year, I think ....Ewee will confirm. Not that long a tol to tell the truth. The guy that had them before us had been trying for a year or two but had no joy.

Des wrote:Did you notice that the male had trapped the female in the cave,prior to this event?.

Ayep, it was around 2 weeks ago I saw both male and female (well their tails atleast) in the cave. The male has been camping out in this cave ever since. We've had a bit of interest from the other Zebbies but nothing to write home about. I didn't mention it before as I didn't want to get everyones (including me and Ewees) hopes up too much.

wandj wrote:So you can tell us what you did to get a spawn? Any secrets? Were you trying a rainy season?

I did absolutely nothing......thats what made me so surprised. I left them to it, keeping the water as clean as always. I did feed an extra portion of tetra prima on the night before I noticed the 2 fish in the 1 cave but thats about it.

Somthing that has change tho is the main setup/current in the tank.... Before the spawning took place the power head I used on this tank packed in and decided not to work. Now this was the main contributor to the surface agitation and all over aeration to the tank so the minute it broke, it was substituted for a bubble wand and air pump. This was a temporary measure but when I noticed how much more active the zebras were with the calmer water I decided to leave it for a while and see how things went. Now I know this Power Head aint going back in. I tend to agree with McEve (i think it was you that said) tho.....I recon aeration is much more important than current, although with some mechanical methods, like powerheads...the 2 come as a package.

Adam wrote:I thought you said that you had 4 males? Come on stop holding out, when did you get the female(s) or was it a case of mistaken identity.

I had always thought that I had atleast 1 female out of the 4 (possibly 2). It was you guys that said I had 4 males. Aint it just great to be right for once http://www.zebrapleco.com/forum/viewtop ... 57&start=0

I have a crappy photo that I took last night. I'll link it up soon and stick it in the photo gallery

Dr. P wrote:Before the spawning took place the power head I used on this tank packed in and decided not to work. Now this was the main contributor to the surface agitation and all over aeration to the tank so the minute it broke, it was substituted for a bubble wand and air pump. This was a temporary measure but when I noticed how much more active the zebras were with the calmer water I decided to leave it for a while and see how things went. Now I know this Power Head aint going back in. I tend to agree with McEve (i think it was you that said) tho.....I recon aeration is much more important than current, although with some mechanical methods, like powerheads...the 2 come as a package.

This is really interesting! When my Zebras spawned the first time I had for sime time been wondering about quiet enviroment for the fish. I had a powerhead that made a sound like a tractor, but only noticeable if I put my ear to the glass though. (please don't ask me why I do things like that ) Anyho, I decided to change it with another pump, which had much less capacity, but was very quiet. This was one of three parameters that changed, the other two was a sudden drop in PH in my tap water, and getting a cave from dr_gribb. One week later they spawned.

Since then I've been thinking and doing a bit of research, + testing to see how the different things affected the Zebras. I rearranged the decor, to see if that would make things happen, thinking along the lines of high current during the rainy season, Zebras being swept down to a different part of the river so forth, but no.

Then I though, ok, the PH was lowered, which would also happen during the rainy season, so I dropped the PH gradually, and did get a couple of false alarms, but nothing to be too excited about.

I then thought, lower the current to tell the Zebra the rainy season is finished. Problem was that I already have a rather low current, as, yes it was me Dr. P, I believe oxygen saturation is more important than current in itself - so what I did was add an extra power head, the noisy one, for two weeks. Then I turned it off - and three days later the male is guarding eggs

It's too early to make any definate conclusiions, but this makes me wonder if we're onto something!

Congrats again anyway, may there be many more to come!

PS I though you had a female there! Just had to gloat after having guessed wrong so many times

McEve wrote:It's too early to make any definate conclusiions, but this makes me wonder if we're onto something!

I would say theres a very strong possibility.

P.S. Where is the "i'm so exstatically happy I may p myself!" smiley?

Wonderful news, glad things turned out well.

Dr. P wrote: P.S. Where is the "i'm so exstatically happy I may p myself!" smiley?

it's a wonderful feeling isn't it

BTW, do you know if this was the first spawn for this group?