Spawning of SAE

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I’d like to thank Liisa Sarakontu for her help! I appreciate it very much!

In this extract I’ll let you know our correspondence and the letter of Doug Underwood who bred the SAE in 1996.
The correspondence was corrected for better perception and refraining avoidance of repetition.

Good afternoon Liisa!
Thank you very much for your answer and agreement to help!
First of all, I'd like to describe the current situation:
5 SAE, ~1.5-2 years old, 2 female/3 male,~12cm (4.7 inches) every. One of the female has hard-roe, she is aprx.- 2.5 cm (~0.8 inch) in the diameter.

Their age and size is suitable for breeding.

Was bought the tank 160L (35.55 gals) for them.(heater, filter with
biofiltration are present). The tank made from plexiglas. The total light
power, for this moment, 160Watt.

SAEs have bred is such a small tank at least once, but they should be
housed in a much bigger aquarium. They are active and fast swimmers and do
best in a tank which is at least 10 times as long as the adult length of
SAEs. I have kept SAEs too in a 160 L tank, but I wouldn't dream of
breeding them there. Nowadays all my SAEs live in a 300 L tank.

Also, I have vegetation food for them - soy (bean) tablets, vitaminous
tablets, spinach (frozen), dandelion's leaves (fresh).
The meat's diet consists of more then 10 types of foods (if necessary)

SAEs eat about everything, so this sounds ok.

I'd like to avoid breeding stimulation with injection of gonadotropin. It
could be leaved for the end, if natural stimulators won't work. (especially,
the doses calculation is hard for me, I haven't had any practice in it for
this moment). (I've been breeding cichlids, catfishes.)

I have never heard hormone injections used with SAEs, but it should work
too. Anyway, it has been proven that they can be bred without them so it
is good that you want to try

I took this idea from the technology of LABEO breeding (Labeo frenatus and
bicolor). They are in the same group. That's was the reason I thought about
it.

Actually those two fish are not Labeos but members of genus
Epalzeorhynchus. But yes, they are closely related to SAEs and I've heard
too that they can be bred with hormones.

Please, if it is possible - send the information about SAE's breeding and
comment/remark to my current situation.

SAEs seem to breed after a big change in something - and about any chance
seems to do.

The first person who bred them and wrote about it to the net simulated
rain and dry seasons, and when all the other fish he had bred after that,
SAEs bred too and he managed to raise some fry to adulthood. This raport
might be found somewhere from the net still today, perhaps from the
archives of Aquatic Plants List. Anyway, first was dry season with very
little filtration, very little feeding, no water changes, warm water. This
lasted something like 2 weeks. Then simulated rain with very, very soft
water, LOTS of water current, lots of feeding, lots of water changes,
temperature went down a little. Tank size at least 300 L, if I remember
correctly.

Another breeding which resulted in eggs (but no fry) happened when a
family was away during winter and all house heating had gone down. When
they got back home, tank temperature was about 18 C. They rather quickly
heated the tank back to normal (about 24 C) and SAEs bred. I don't know
the tank size in this case, but it was a normal community tank, pH about
7, soft (or even very soft) water.

And I know 2 or perhaps 3 cases when SAEs have bred immeadiately after
they have been moved to a brand new tank with fresh water and perhaps no
other fish. In these cases they have most often been rather young (well
under 2 years) and smallish (under 10 cm) fish.

Would it be possible I to use our correspondence (completely or partly), in
case I'll need to discuss smthg with my colleagues on UkrForum?

Sure

Далі буде......