I have tried to show my breeding experience in a short breeding photo report. I have been breeding Tateurndina ocellicauda or Peacock Goby by its common name.
Sexing
Image 1: males can be recognised by their blockheads
Image 2: Females have a more rounded head
Preperation
Give a male and female Tateurndina ocellicauda their own breeding tank. Get the temperature up to around 24 degrees Celsius (72 °F). Give them plenty of hiding by means of rocks, halved coconut, wood or something like that. (I just had a flat rock, the male dug his own hole beneath it).
Feed them well. I gave them a mixture of frozen bloodworms, red mosquito larvae (frozen and dried), flakes, granules and drie mini wafers.
Spawning
The female wil get a fatter belly. The male sees she is ready to spawn and will start flaring at her. This can last a couple of days.
If you don’t see both of them during feeding you know its happening, they are under a stone or in a cave. They will spawn inside their cave. After spawning, the male will chase the female away. The male Peacock Goby will guard the nest. You will see the female is much slimmer now.
Image 3: The female Peacock Goby has spawned. Her belly has slimmed down considerably.
Hatching and raising the Fry
The eggs hatch after around six days (I removed the eggs from the male around this time and put them in a separate tank. Because I removed them I have no experience in the brood care of the male). The first days, the fry still lay at the bottom, wiggling a bit, they still have their yolk-sacks on which they feed.
Image 4: The eggs are hatching. You can clearly see the yolk-sac.
Image 5: The first couple of days you can feed them Liquifry (no.1). It is important to change water every other day.
After a couple of days you can see the small fry swim free. Now you can switch to newly hatched brine shrimp or very fine powder food.
Inside this Peacock Goby fry you can see a bubble of air, that is his swim bladder.
At two months they have reached a length of around 2 centimetres.
At 3,5 months you can clearly tell males from females, the difference in their heads is visible now.
As with breeding with any fish species it is important to change water. Breeding this species had no special requirements other then giving them a tank of their own and some decoration.
Copyright Images
Eric Don
Hristo Hristov
