Article by Bradley E. Moore
Breeding – Badis burmanicus (ruber)
Tank specs:
Temp: 77° F
TDS: 20
Tank: 10 Gallon
Early December 2014 I receive a picture and text from Charley Grimes asking me if I would be interested in any of what he thought were Badis burmanicus. I learned that I should take any fish that Charley offers as they are usually super cool and will almost always breed!
A few days after Christmas I made the 30 minute drive to pick up the fish. I will add that if anyone hasn’t been to Charley’s before, you really should make the trip over there. He has one of the best fish rooms I’ve ever seen. I also, was given a small group of Elassoma gilberti to work with while muddling around his fish room! Back to the story, I selected what we thought were a male and female from a tank of 10-12 fish. The fish were of breeding size and the male was brightly colored. When I got them home I added them to a 10 gallon tank and added 2 small apisto huts. The male immediately went into hiding while the female was out and about. I started feeding them black worms and the male would only come out to eat and to beatup on the female. I added a handful of guppies to use as feeder fish and and hoped that male would settle down. About a week later I noticed a few small eggs inside the males hut buit they soon disappeared. The males raise the broods for this species of Badis (just like almost all badis).
A few weeks go by and I notice the male not coming out of his hut even at feeding time. Under closer inspection I notice there were 35-50 eggs and wigglers in the cave. Fearing the male would eat them I waited another day and dumped the fry into one of my fry traps. After the fry became free swimming I added 64 oz of green water the tank for them to feed off of. It roughly 2 and a half weeks for the fry to become big enough to eat baby brine shrimp. I left the 34 fry in the fry trap for 9 weeks before releasing them into a 10 gallon tank. The fry grow painfully slow and at 3.5 months of age are still less than ¼ inch in length. All in all this was a very challenging project and huge learning experience due to the fry size and early feeding requirements!