Breeding Ghostknife Fish

[herefishiefishie]

I had a couple of replies of interest, so I thought I would add what works for a couple of people I know.

First of all you need a compatible pair. Males head shape is that more of a horse, than the female. His eyes are more towards the top of the head. Female's more slender & its eyes are lower & to the front of its head close to it's mouth.

Tanks have been set up with bare bottoms, with bottoms with pot plants filled with large pebbles, the bottom fully covered in large pebbles(black works best) or anything that allows the eggs to fall through, so the parents cant get them.

One breeder here his male rips out the filter wool of the box filter & the female drops eggs in that. ( I haven't seen this to confirm)

The prefered way is to use chinese egg containers with the large smooth black pebbles, the clear eggs contarst well against the black. If you miss the laying you can still see the heap of eggs, eggs will go white if bad, if good they go dark in colour.

The filtration should be used to stimulate waterflow & rainfall. Being a tropical, riverine animal. Aqua Clear hang on filters, internal filters used with a spray bar......

as for water quality, my mates set up worked well, he uses a blue globe for lighting, is lazy on the waterchanges,(tank is overfiltered anyway) The tank has a lovely growth of algae too. Dosen't use a heater either, his room is warm. Some others use a heater, tank set at 27 degrees. Then again here is sub tropical.

Breeding, seems to work the same as with American cichlids. Weather changes(storms) a large water change eg;50% but where you add 10-20% water per day for 3 days, seem to spark them on.

The ritual looks more like a wrestling match, males & females get red flashes in their tails, males flash is brighter. They twind there bodies around each other, while swimming/rolling around the tank. The female lays her eggs just above the rocks, looks like she is feeding fromm the rocks. The eggs are located just behind her head. The female swims up & away & then the male goes to the rocks & fertilisers the eggs. They then repeat the process again..... at the end the poor buggers look like they have died, but they are stuffed after such a long time at it.

The eggs take about 4 to 7 days to hatch. As they mature first they grow a little tail, they are brown in colour, the more they grow the morethey form the slender shape & get darker in colour.

Remove the fry once they start to venture out of the safety of the rocks. About 2 to 3 weeks. I'd personally take them out at 2 weeks as the parents don't care for their young & the young can end up a food source.

Daphnia, fry powder, feshly hatch baby brine shrimp are used to feed the young.

I think that covers it, any questions?

Frenchy

[herefishiefishie]

Here's a site form A Gold Caost shop. Different breeder to the one I have the information from.

http://www.gnsaquarium.com.au/html/bgk.html

Frenchy

[HandS]

We have 2 ghosts, in a 4 foot, and they have a definate diffrence in head shape. They both like there own space and we rearly see them togeather, if they are going to spawn, will they start becoming more social towards each other or will they always be "independent"????

[herefishiefishie]

Tend to do there own thing, until they are in the mood, usually the male is the more "keen" one. Sounds like humans. :lol:

Frenchy

[Alan]

Questions HFF,

How big do they have to be, to be breeders?

What age??

Water conditions?

Thanks

Alan 104

[herefishiefishie]

ph around 6.8

Age is a toughy in terms of age, 18 months to 2 years. Size seems to be about 30cm.

I had a customer(first time I have met him) who came in the shop yesterday who mentioned amongst other things that he was trying to breed his ghosties, (caught my attention)he has a female about a foot long & a smaller male. She has droped eggs before.(got me excited)

He was away for 3 weeks, flatmate left the light on whole time, he mentioned the he had lots of algae growing, did a huge water change, & the ghosties were doing the "roll", red flashes....female harassing the male, so I gave a copy of the above. Hopefully the male is old enough fingers crossed.

So I am hoping he changes the subtract, as he only has sand/small pebbles as the substract.

Frenchy

[livebearer_breeder]

3 weeks of the light on! wouldnt that have killed all the fish?

Shae

[shiuh]

great info!! thanks for sharing!

[herefishiefishie]

3 weeks of the light on! wouldnt that have killed all the fish?

no

Frenchy

[dee_jay_01]

hey all, I was hoping my two BGK, would get into some action for me, but to hear that they have to be around the foot long BUGGER. mine are only about 4-5" so a long way to go yet, but looking forward to the BIG day.