Breeding Tatia Catfish Disclaimer, I’m not a very experienced expert but I have learned enough to know what I should be doing.
I own a community tank with several catfish and a few rainbows, but I never thought my collection of rare catfish would actually spawn for me. I have 6 Tatia Intermedia, 3 Tatia Musaica, and two Otorongo wood catfish(also Tatias).
Last Monday, October 14th, I was doing a water change as per usual, when I started trying to shake out debris from inside my thick and bushy bolbitus plant. In the process I discovered a Tatia Intermedia nesting with about 200 of her eggs in the center of the plant. I of course decided to remove the eggs before any snails or catfish ate them.
I now have a small container with all the eggs in it that I do 25% water changes daily. I use the tank water from the tank I have the parents in to avoid any tap water related issues.
This past Saturday, October 20th, I saw the first heads and tails on all the fry. Yesterday evening, the 22nd, I found a few “dead” fry outside of their egg casings. Fortunately they were just the newly born fry that couldn’t freely swim yet. I now have about half of the eggs hatched and the others are still going just fine.
Being that these are Tatia catfish, feeding them made be the hardest part of all of this, and the fact that even when they are newborn fry, they behave like adults when they can’t hide; playing dead.
The fry do have react to light and tend to jitter when I turn the lights on.
I am trying to upload videos, but it appears I need to make a YouTube channel first. The videos will be in the replies to this thread.
I will keep posting about updates on these guys in this thread.
I think it’s safe to assume the Tatias are going to steadily keep breeding, this is the third and the biggest clutch since they started in October