peppermint eggs!!!

woot woot!! finally! triggered my peppermints saturday with the weather change and i've been very careful at looking to see if there had been any action, thought they hadn't and was feeling a bit frustrated. but checked tonight and my male has a lovely clutch of eggs in his cave! all my hard work has finally paid off! aaahhh im soooooo excited!!

Congratulations!!!!!
You must be soooo proud!!!

Congratulations!!!! I'm so pleased for you .

congratulations

AWESOME!!!!!

congrads for sticking with it!!

looking forward to hearing their development

congrats on the find. wish i had found eggs in my males cave in time. otherwise i wouldnt have a tank full of fry im dreading to catch :roll:

congrats ,colin.

thanks everyone!!
i just did a 20% water change and tried to get a better look at them to make sure all was ok and they are already wrigglers! as today is day 5 they must have just hatched and dad must have been hiding them pretty good!
i did some tests for anyone who is interested:
pH 7.4 - i know its high but kept trying to get it down and it keeps buffing up to adelaide's water
ammonia 0
nitrite 0
nitrate 5 - 10
temp 22 - it was 28 for a few weeks and reduced it to 22 with the water change
kH 2 - not what i want it to be but as i have been trying to soften my water and lower my pH so much it has gone from 7 to 2 over the last month or more.
does anyone know if its ok to take photos? or will i freak the male out too much? and as they have hatched when should i be putting in extra cucumber? (is that all they will eat?)
cheers

congrats on the spawn hope they hatch ok.

it will take them a while to get through their yokes. once they get through that they will begin to emerge and look of food. when you start to see the fish begin to emerge then you will need to add in some additional cucumber.

A KH of 2 is ok.

If they are happy to spawn in your conditions then i wouldnt muck around with it too much for now.

I would wait until the fry have taken on their adult colours before taking pics because at that time they are totally independent and if dad freaks out it wont bother the fry.

YOU LUCKY B$%#@%D. Awesome news man. Thanks for letting us in on how this spawn came about. Hopefully i can have the same success soon.Great job

Don't forget to remember me peppermint 23 when the little guys come through.

J

Just out of interest what teqnique eventually did the trick for you..

thanks guys
yep im not going to mess with my water anymore i think once i stopped trying too much with getting ph down and all that they felt happy to spawn.
heheh J, i think it was your female that spawned. hard to be certain coz all she is doing now is hiding and i dont want to be stressing the tank out to see if her belly is smaller but thank you for such an awesome girl!
to trigger the spawn i just had the temp on 28 degrees for a few weeks with feeding what i always feed (veggies, shrimp pellets, new life spectrum, and blood worms once a week) and watched the weather and atmospheric pressure, waited for it to drop (from 1029 hpa to about 1012 hpa) one rainy day and did a 40% - 50% cold water change, dropped the temp to 22 degrees and covered the tank with a big towel to make it completely dark for a few days. i decided not to do daily water changes like i have in the past coz i thought that me going near the tank would probably be enough for them to get scared and nothing will happen. i've realised with these guys they are heaps shy so i think covering the tank definitely helped as it left them to it with do interuptions. also my male recently changed his choice of cave so maybe he knew that the old cave wasn't going to work for them and changing made them more comfortable and safe.
i'm stoked!

my pep babies are doing great! they have all coloured up and dad still has them in the cave. there's a good number of them too for a first spawn (25+) i'm quite surprised at how fast they absorbed their yolk. it's been only 8 days since they spawned. they are so damn cute!!! so they are about 1cm (or just under) now, i'm just wondering how long approx will it take for them to get to the 3cm size? just so i can monitor them and make sure they are growing at a healthy rate.
pics will be up when i see them leaving the cave

i would also like to know growth rate

my L071 peppermints have resumed breeding again after a long rest

will try to post pictures shortly..