On the other hand Empires are difficult to breed under aquarium conditions
or more precisely the fry are difficult to raise under aquarium conditions.
You are faced with a number of problems.
The fish are very difficult to sex when they are only an inch long. I don't
know how you are sexing them but you will really need to wait until they are
a bit bigger before the sex becomes obvious. Wild populations of Empires are
usually remarkably diverse in colour and pattern to the extent that males
and females can look like the opposite if you get a bright female and a dull
or suppressed male.
It isn't too hard to get them to lay eggs and for the male to guard them but
the fry are so small when hatched that they make great food for everyone
else and they need fodder so fine that even some green water seems to be
unsuitable.
Even if you get them to start growing the ongoing difficulty of feeding them
up to the 1/2 inch size is not to be underestimated.
My only success with breeding Empires was when I put a couple of them into a
horse water trough (an old bath tub) to keep the mosquito wrigglers at bay.
The bath was usually full of ugly green water, maintained by the inevitable
bits of horse poo, hay and horse dribble. I had a single house brick in the
bath (to keep the plug in). The gudgeons often sheltered in the holes
through the brick. About 18 months later I took all the fish out of the bath
and found that I had about 8 extras each about 20mm long. I subsequently did
the same thing with Firetail Gudgeons with even greater success.
You won't really be getting the best out of your Empires until they reach at
least 2 inches. When they reach 3 to 4 inches, then you will really
appreciate them. I have seen Empires from the wild that were about 6 inches
long, but they were all females and very dull fish.
Empires are a group that are very variable, for example in 1999 I found a
group of fish in WA that were all black, at least when they were not
displaying.
Hope this helps,
Matthew
> -----Original Message-----
> From: panagisk at excite.com [SMTP:panagisk at excite.com]
> Sent: Thursday, January 04, 2001 3:42 AM
> To: rainbowfish at pcug.org.au
> Subject: [RML] Tat.ocellicauda and Empire gudgeons
>
>
> Greetings everyone! First, I'd like to know if questions concerning
> Tateurndina ocellicauda (the peacock goby) and Hypseleotris compressa (the
> Empire gudgeon) would be considered off-topic...
> If not, I have some questions. Under what conditions have any of you
> bred
> either of the two fish? What tank size would you recommend for a group of
> 5
> Peacocks and a pair of Empires? Does anybody have any experience keeping
> Empires? Do they take a long time to color up? I bought a pair from a
> pet
> store last June and the male was at about an inch long and the female
> slightly smaller and only now am I starting to see some red coloration on
> the male's fins- none on the body however. Their diet is a mix of frozen
> bloodworms, frozen daphnia, frozen brine shrimp, spirulina flake and
> regular
> community flake food. I try to vary each day what I give them.
> I've put several different sizes (from .5 inch to 2 inches wide) of short
> lengths of PVC tubing in the tank (a 20L= 30"x12"x12") but both the
> Peacocks
> and the Empires have avoided them. They ARE cave spawners, right?
> The tank is heated to 76 degrees Fahrenheit and at a pH of 6.7.
> Hardness,
> I don't know, but we do have generally soft water out of the tap.
> Any tips for getting either of the two fish to breed would be greatly
> appreciated. Thank you!
> -Peter Kakouris
>
>
>
>
>
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