Breeding the Blue Gularis

There is something that makes your heart beat a little faster as you carefully squeeze the remaining water out of the spawning mop and glance to see a few tiny crystal clear pearls hidden within. An hour later after having to recount several times, your final estimate stands at right around 200 eggs.

Breeding the Blue Gularis takes some time and practice. When you finally have it down, your 5-6 inch pair is producing 50+ eggs per day and the real dilemma becomes how to house the 2 inch fry that are starting to tear each other apart.

First thing to do is choose your strain/locality. Most common is either the aquarium strain or the Niger Delta strain. Having had both, I see no reason not to keep the Niger Delta strain, as it's trident tail and deep colors are very pronounced and this would questionably be the best looking of them all. Also, the aquarium strains are known to have issues with egg fertility.

The importance of water quality cannot be stressed enough, as these fish eat a lot. They seem to prefer a temperature in the range from 65F-75F. Hardness and PH is often debated about, but after a year of maintaining them in softer conditions, I decided to go with straight tap water. Mine has a PH of 8.2 and 180ppm TDS. This has worked well for me. Tank size seems to matter little to the fish, although they have massive appetites and can easily foul a small tank if you are fattening them for breeding. In order to keep the tank absolutely clean, I most often use a clean bare-bottomed tank.

There are several methods of breeding them. The least productive but easiest would be the permanent setup. A trio can be housed in a densely planted 30g + tank and with good feeding, fry will appear on their own. They should be transferred out as they are seen, as the likelyhood of their survival to adulthood is slim.

The second method is similar to the first, but the parents are transferred after a couple weeks.  In 2-3 more weeks, fry should appear. This method would work fine in smaller tanks as well, provided there are plenty of hiding spaces for the females.

The main technique that I use is to have a pair housed next to each other in two side by side 10g tanks, where they are well fed. About once or twice a week, I bring the two together and fill the tank with sinking mops. I will often use a divider to decrease the amount of space for the fish to swim, ensuring that the mops are covering the ground. I leave them like this overnight and separate the pair and the mops about an hour after the light turn on in the morning. This method will produce anywhere from 50-200+ eggs each time.

Eggs may be incubated two ways: 
-  The eggs can be placed in clean water, either after being picked or directly on the mop. This is easier, but does not control for the spread of fungus, which at times can be overwhelming due to eggs that have not been successfully fertilized. Eggs incubated in this method hatch in 3-4 weeks depending on temperature.
- The more successful method I have had has been to pick the eggs from the mop by hand. The eggs are placed on damp peat moss in a tightly closed container or plastic baggie and placed in a dark location. This method takes a little longer for the eggs to hatch and depending on temperature can take 5-10 weeks to hatch. Make sure to label them with the date you packed them.

When the eggs are ready to hatch, I place the peat in a tub of room temperature water. Within a few hours you should see some fry. They are quite large and are immediately ready to begin eating.

Fry are large and can take microworms or baby brine immediately. I try to separate them as soon after hatching (within 2-3 days). The peat in the water makes a great hiding place for uneaten food which can easily foul the water. Other hints are to add a couple pond snails to clean up uneaten food and some java moss to process nitrates and harbor infusoria.

Fry can be fed often and with corresponding water changes, they grow quickly, reaching 2 inches in 2-3 months, at which point the sex can begin to be determined. Just be sure to have a plan for all these fry, as they soon begin to fight and need plenty of space. Luckily there is a constant demand for Blue Gularis at local clubs and auctions.