Article by Bradley E. Moore
Sturistoma Areum
Tank Specs
TDS: 180 ppm
Temp: 80° F
Tank size: 47 Gallon column with high flow
After wanting and looking for these fish for some time I finally caught a break. Charley Miller from Kokomo was tearing down his fish room and had offered up 2 adult pairs. I jumped at the chance to work with this fish and within a week I had the 2 pair in a 20 high quarantine tank slowly moving them over to softer water. After about a month I had fat females but no eggs.
I asked around and was told that Charley had been breeding them in a 29 gallon with 2 powerheads on each side. So, I made the move I set them up in a 47-column tank with 2 20-gallon rated sponges running full bore and a canister filter.
I moved one male and one female into the tank. Less than 24 hours there were about 35 eggs on the glass where the canister outlet hit. The male had his bristles out and was hovering over all the eggs and fanning them. The male guarded the eggs for about 6 days. I was leaving for a weekend vacation so I decided that I should try to pull them. With a razor blade I scrapped the now black eggs off and moved them into a homemade fry saver. While doing so the male repeatedly attached the razor and me. All the eggs hatched while I was moving them.
After returning home I found that all the fry were still alive and looking pretty decent. I cut up some zucchini and baby spinach and put into the fry savers. The fry savers only held about 1-1/2 of water, and I had read that anything over an inch and they will starve looking for food. In the meantime, I made some food out of 1/3 spirulina powder, 1/3 HBH krill and, 1/3 algae wafers.
It took about 1 month to get the fry off of the fresh veggies and on to the fry food mixture. In the meantime I added another female to the tank and she had spawned as well.
I change about 10-15 gallons of water 1 time a week. Fry grow very slow and at almost three months the fry are in between 1-1.75 inches. I slowly weaned them onto algae wafers and fed 1 wafer to each fry saver 2 times a day and all is well.