HELP!!!! Black Knife

[Harls]

How Do u Breed black knives and how do u tell their gender !!!!!!!
Harls_aussie

[Rue]

I'd have to look it up...are you having a problem with your spawning attempts?

[Harls]

i have been looking for info but can't find any. i thought someone on here might know
Harls_aussie

[HeavyWeaponsGuy]

taken from the BGK proboards:



how does this relate to breeding over here. Well many different ways have been set up to breed them from what I have been told. The principle though is the same as with any fish and that is to find a compatible pair. The best way that a male has been described to me is that his head is shaped more like that of a horse's head and it's eyes are more towards the top of it's head. Whilst the female has a slender head and it's eyes are lower and more towards the front of it's head close to it's mouth. There is also another way that I have not been able to fully verify yet and that is the male have larger eyes and they are fully black whilst the female has smaller eyes which are moreof an opaque colour. However as I said I have not been able to verify this completely. Tanks have been set up with bare bottoms that have the bottom of a pot plant in it filled with large pebbles, the bottom fully covered with marbles or anything that will allow the eggs to drop through without the parents getting to them. From all the info so far it seems that smooth rocks/pebbles regardless of how they are set out is what they prefer. Chinese container's with dark marbles in them have been used to great effect. Water quality has been hardest to get accurate info on as it seems that most people that I have spoken to had tanks that were riddled with algae, almost to the point of having putrid water as it seems that this is what they prefer however 1 person that I spoke to was pedantic about water quality and did regular water changes. Whatever filter people used it was also unanimous in the fact that the water flowed down onto the top of the tanks water level. Anything can be used for this as 1 person even used a powerhead hooked up to some hose that ran into a shower rose so that the resulting flow was similar to that of a tropical down pour. There was also varying success with lighting. Most people had completely darkened tanks in very quiet areas while 1 person had a brightly lit tank with regular loud music. I suppose it all depends on what sort of environment the fish is comfortable in. The average water temp. that was observed for breeding was 27 degrees celcius.

When both are ready to mate both the male and the female will have a red flashing on their tail. However the males is fairly predominant with the females only being slight. When the female lays the eggs it looks as if she is feeding from the rocks as the eggs come out from just under her head. As the female takes a break the male fertilises the eggs. Afterwards it may look as if the male is dead as he may lay motionless for a while but he's only shagged from a marathon session. When the female comes back to lay more eggs the male will take off and there continue's the laying cycle. The eggs when laid are clear and will go white if they go bad. This is where the chinese containers with dark marbles are effective due to the contrast in colours. If you do miss the laying process you will be able to tell anyway due to the amount of eggs laid. As the eggs mature they will slowly grow a tail and form their natural shape, at this stage being brown in colour and turning black as they mature. If you do remove the fry, do so around the 2-3 week mark as this is when they will start to venture out and will be mistaken for food by the parents. The fry love protein pellets and blood worms. Grind the pellets up in a salt or pepper grinder over a net so that once it is crushed you can feed it to the fry. The blood worms are good for conditioning and they should thrive on protein pellets. The one over riding factor out of all of this is the ability to keep the fry alive. For some reason there is a high mortality rate with 10 out of a 100 being a very good survivability rate from all accounts.


tl;dr
black ghost knifefish are a pain in the butt to breed

[Harls]

Thanks For The Info

[HeavyWeaponsGuy]

no problem. if you happen to succeed, post pictures!