Young catfish Photo: Moritz Hertel
In the case of catfish, the males take care of the brood. As a rule, the male takes care of the eggs and young very intensively. If necessary, risking your own life. Conspecifics and sometimes other species are often violently driven out of the vicinity of the breeding cavity. But not always.
When caring for the brood, the male is often not seen for a long time because he doesn’t even come out of the cave to feed.
The only danger for the young are snails. Once they get a taste for it, there probably won’t be a single egg left. Otherwise, the young can stay with the adults without hesitation. Of course, other fish can eat the young.
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Breeding tips
Clutches of antennae catfish Photo: Christoph Schöberl
The male initially guards the eggs and uses his fins to fan fresh water at the eggs. The eggs are yellow to orange in color and about four millimeters in size.
The young hatch about a week after the eggs are laid. Usually about 40 to 50 young hatch. In the first few days, the hatched young are also guarded by the male. The male blocks the exit of the cave. After another week, the young are already about 1 centimeter tall and are allowed to leave the den.
Young that leave the den very early can still be orange in color and still have a fairly large yolk sac. It will then take some time before they turn black.
The young usually come out of the cave about 14 days after the eggs are laid. You can therefore usually only see them when they already have no yolk sac and are already more pigmented, i.e. black in colour.
The first young escape the father after about 12 days. After about 15 days they only swim outside the breeding cavity and are completely independent. They lie on plant leaves, on discs and on roots.
protection of juvenile fish
Young catfish Photo: Tanja Pirenz
Filter outlet and filter inlet should be secured with a sock, a filter sponge or something similar, especially for internal filters. Otherwise, the young swim into the filter, but do not always find their way out.
If there are no predators in the aquarium, feeding them a little more and more often than usual is sufficient to raise the young.
The smaller they are, the more sensitive the young react to being transferred to other tanks. In principle, it is possible to move or hand over the young immediately after they have swarmed out. However, you should wait until the young are 3 to 4 centimeters tall.
After six months, the boys are about 10 centimeters tall.
Food for young catfish
Freshly hatched young often only eat growth, ie they rasp algae from plants, on the discs and on the roots.
Suitable wood must be in the breeding tank.
Green algae, at least on the rear and side windows, are therefore useful in the rearing tank.
Only from a certain size do the young go to other food.
Suitable food for young catfish:
- crumbled food tablets, e.g. B. TabiMin
- Dust food for fish fry
- Peas
- paprika
- salad
- carrots
- cucumber slices
- washed lettuce leaf doused with boiling water
- raw potato slices
- Artemia
- boiled lettuce
- previously rinsed egg yolk
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Vegetables etc. should be scalded. Cucumber slices floating on the surface and catfish tablets containing spirulina are eaten with pleasure.
It may take a few days for the young to become accustomed to a type of vegetable.
Depending on the vegetables and the size of the rearing tank, the water may turn slightly green. This is usually harmless. Nevertheless, a lot of water should be changed, because the young catfish need many water changes even without vegetable feeding.
The young should be well fed and always find enough food for them to grow well. Nevertheless, it should be fed sparingly so that the young also eat algae. The water parameters must be carefully monitored. If necessary, the water must be changed more frequently. Because the young can be sensitive to large water changes, multiple small water changes are better than one large one.
The amount of food should not be increased suddenly, but gradually increased. In this way, the bacteria can adapt to the higher amount of pollutants and nothing rots and no nitrite is produced. It is best not to increase the amount per feeding but the number of feedings per day.
Ancistrus dolichopterus young animal Source: Picture on Wikimedia Commons License: CC Attr. SA 3.0 Author: DENker
In order to feed z. B. Fill the lid of an old food can with water and pour some food into it.
With a syringe without a needle from the pharmacy, the mixture is sucked in and injected near the boys.
Without predators in the aquarium, 100 to 150 catfish can grow up with good feeding. Even if there are enough takers, it is difficult to capture the young.
One catch method is to remove the intake strainer from the canister filter.
Then all that remains is to regularly check the inlet chamber of the filter and get the young out. However, larger young catfish easily get stuck.
Breeding in community tanks
Young catfish Photo: Philippe Coulon
Since the young fish are initially guarded by the father and many fish do not eat catfish babies because of the armor, there is a fairly high chance that the young in the community tank will not be eaten.
However, the young initially need a lot of food. Not every community tank has enough algae and microorganisms for the young to have enough food.
Additional food such as tablets or vegetables is not found by the young in larger tanks or is eaten up by the other fish.
In community tanks, there is often not enough food left over for the young.
Swordtails, aspidoras and dwarf cichlids eat young catfish and can ensure that not too many young get through.
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Buy catfish:
Antennae catfish are readily available in local aquarium stores. A few providers also offer online purchases with professional shipping.
Here we recommend Garnelio*: