M. auratus spawning

I happened to catch my 2 M. auratus spawning today.

First a few pics (female is yellow, male is dark brown).

Spawning involves going around & around in circles. The female lays the eggs, then the male comes along & fertilizes them, then the female comes and picks them up in her mouth. Unfortunately, she kept picking them up right before I snapped a pic so I didn't get any showing the eggs.


You can see the ovipositor on the female here.


Demonstrating what the egg spot is for.

Egg spots are small orange spots on the anal fin (generally in males, but sometimes females will have them too). Sometimes females will get in such a hurry, they'll pick up the eggs before the male can fertilize them. So the male will turn so his anal fin is laying on the ground and the female will nip at the egg spot thinking it's an actual egg. When she does that, it gives the male a chance to fertilize the eggs in her mouth.

And here's a video. If you look carefully, you can see some of the eggs.
http://chelle16.7oh2.com/auratusspawn.wmv (5.4M - will probably take 2 or 3 minutes to download with a cable connection).

Since I don't currently have room for more fry, I went ahead and stripped her afterwards. There was no point in letting her starve for 3 weeks if I wasn't going to keep the fry. I ended up getting 51 eggs. :shock:

-Chelle

 

Very cool Chelle! Couldn't watch the video (stupid 'puter!) but it took less than one minute to download with my cable connection.

Makes my miss my m. auratus Artie. Loved that little guy (actually a girl, but looked more like a boy. I think she was "confused")

Anyway, congrats. Maybe you can keep them next time.

 

hey how did you strip her of her eggs
??

 

Could have been an immature male. All juveniles have the female coloration.

Here's some of the fry from their last spawning (plus some yellow labs & cory cats)


And here's an mpeg version of the video. You might have better luck getting it to play. The dimensions are smaller, though, so you might not be able to see the eggs.
http://chelle16.7oh2.com/auratusspawn.mpg

-Chelle

 

I held her inside a net, opened her mouth with the end of a plastic zip tie (it's not sharp, but small enough to not block her whole mouth), and she spit the eggs out. It's not too difficult, but you have to be careful to get a good grip on her w/o hurting her or blocking her gills.

-Chelle

 

Well that's what my little guy looked like when I bought him/her. As he/she grew she just became a grayish color with two black stripes, the only yellow was on her fins really. But the color would change. When I finally parted with her/him I'd had him about 1 year and he/she was dark gray color with black stripes. No white stripes though. Would she/he have matured by then or is that still considered a juvenile age for these fish? He/she was 5 inches long.

Aren't they just so cute and innocent looking in your pic. I love it!!!!

 

They reach maturity at about 2" so I guess yours probably was a female.

-Chelle