Breeding Acf Diary

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Jenste

Resurrecting the Passion of Fishkeeping
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I am getting my ACF ready for breeding...so tank rescape here I go!!!

well in my main tank, which has my marbled/mottled male "Phantom", and my two albino female "Kirby" and "Phoenix", there are three good sized pieces of drift wood, and a mixture of sand colors black and white. lots of floating water wisteria and two huge banana plants.
my first thought last night was, #40##! i need to get that sand out!!! the eggs are TEENY tiny, and trying to find tiny little white eggs amongst white grains of sand???? impossible. so i am going to drain it down a few inches, maybe down to 12, take the trio out so they can relax, then go about taking ALOT of sand out. (hopefully all if I am lucky)....then I am going to put back in my large river rocks so I have something to root the driftwood and plants into.


any tips/comments are greatly appreciated! I have not bred my ACF before and am looking forward to the challenge!!!

also, if you are in my area (RI,USA) and would like some of the stock please let me know....I would much rather they go to someone who knew what they were doing!!!!
 
Just spent the morning getting every grain of sand possible out of my tank! What a task ugh I never want to do it again!
Now I have large river rocks piled in the back of my tank, leveling down towards the middle to create depth, and the front bare bottom.
I did this so I could try two different methods of catching eggs - -
if they get on the glass, I can suction them up with a turkey baster
if they get on the rocks, I can just gently pick up the rock and move it into the egg tank until they hatch.

we'll see which method works! (fingers crossed for me haha)

and here are the hopefully soon-to-be parents!!!

32031_555970738549_52801994_32437359_1888691_n.jpg


the two albinos are females, "Kirby" and "Pheonix"

the mottled/marble is the male, "Phantom"


I moved them into a critter keeper with a few inches of water while I rescaped their tank....I will upload pictures once the water clears
 
well....the rocks were short lived haha. after two hours of hearing the frogs kick them about, I took them all out and now have a bare tank with only heaps of water wisteria floating at the top....


now, the waiting game.

I just did a 30% water change, replacing with much cooler water...this is supposed to mimic the spring rain and get the male in the mood...
now I am turning off the lights, heading to bed, and keeping my fingers crossed that there are eggs tomorrow! if not, try try again!!!
 
no eggs....just going to repeat tonight, and tomorrow night....until good ol' phantom gets some action! lol
 
deleted - - multi post
 
Have been given the "go ahead" by the S.O. that I can start looking at building my own breeding area....more ten and twenty gallon tanks for breeding tanks and growing tanks :hyper: :hyper: :hyper: :hyper: :hyper: :hyper:

granted, I am allowed to get them once we manage to get the first batch of eggs to morphing froglet stage!!!

:yahoo: :yahoo: :yahoo:


so hopefully in a couple months you will be seeing me set up my new tanks!!! I already have got my spare filter hanging onto my primary tank now so that I will have two cloned medias that I can use to start my new tanks up




Added JUNE 13 2010
adding in what I have done the past few weeks. After researching online other tips from other ACF owners who have bred, it seemed the best course of action was not moving the eggs, but moving the parents.

So I set up a bare 10 gallon tank, added a few pieces of drift wood and a heaping amount of moss balls. Also, seeing as the tadpoles are primarily filter feeders, they recommended i do only partial water changes to keep "stuff" in the water for the tadpoles to filter for the first few days.

i added a small amount of cooler water each night, covered the tank with the towel, and banned my fiancee from the room so he wouldn't disturb them by making noise.



the feeding schedule was first to stuff them full of food such as earth worms, reptomin, blood worms and brine shrimp for a few weeks, then separate the breeding pair into their own tank and fast them - which is what i did this past week. by the third day Phantom was calling up a storm and latching on to Phoenix every way possible (most often to a leg or backwards he was so excited) well...it paid off...on the 5th night going into the 6th day they laid!
 
they laid!!! omg omg omg!!!

Frog eggs! laid overnight fron 5-12-10 to 5-13-10!!!!
CONGRATS TO PHANTOM (male) AND PHOENIX (female)

(obviously the parents ate some lol) and being that Phoenix is just a year old and this is her first lay.... and that I cannot get a full count due to many being laid on/under driftwood and i have many loose, rolling mossballs in there that they laid on....but still!!! the beginnings of my first batch!!!
this piece of wood was only about an inch from the wall of the tank so it was easy to get a picture of the eggs - - now look at your keyboard....they are smaller than the * sign on the number 8!! (just to give you a reference of how tiny!)

here is a picture of a few eggs (they were scattered everywhere)
28601_558908745759_52801994_32547497_6995966_n.jpg



and here is a video clip i took of Phantom's "calling" for a female - - i kept the lights off to encourage him to call! the splashing you here is Kirby, the other female. I do not know if she is responding to his call, or just reacting because Phantom hasn't been in a tank with her in over a week because I had him in his own tank with Phoenix.
 
eggs are all looking good - everyone i can see has a small membrane around it - yay!!! this is what the tadpole will eat for the first three days of morphing from egg to tadpole so seeing a sack is a really good sign. did a partial water change. tank is a stable 79*F.

will be doing another water change in the am and will carefully check every nook and cranny to try and get a total egg count and to make sure i only have fertilized eggs


will try and get more pictures tomorrow to see if the eggs are becoming kidney-bean shaped
 
up early this morning - - did a partial water change. made myself a nervous WRECK. found more eggs in the moss balls....so maybe have close to 30-40. not much for acf normally, but for a first lay with young frogs who ate some unknown number before i discovered the eggs....not bad!

but..... I. Am. A. Nervous. Wreck.
being my first batch, I am so worried i am going to do something wrong! Doing a water change gets my heart race and sweat break out - - i am so worried about accidentally hurting an egg - they are so tiny, and thinking about how tiny (but visible) the eggs are, makes me start worrying about how tiny the tadpoles will be! and unlike the eggs being in one spot, doing a water change will mean worrying about accidentally sucking up a tadpole....and the train of thought keeps going from there!


the next few posts might be fully of worrying....but it is a learning experience! and if it works hopefully someone else trying to breed their acf will read up on my panicking and it will help them with theirs lol.

most eggs are still in a white sphere shape with a thin clear membrane encasing them. I have found that the one egg on the wall has turned into the "c" shape that comes before turning into a tadpole. haven't noticed any of the eggs on the wood or moss balls turning into "c" yet but a few do seem to be forming little dimples.

hopefully more become "c" during the next day!
will try and get a picture taken later to see if anymore eggs
 
pictures!!!! as promised
they are taken by my phone...so not the BEST quality...but not too shabby

the first one is comparing the size of an egg to a Wii Remote (figured it might be something universal that both USA and UK members could recognize...figured money etc was too diverse)

28271_559002727419_52801994_32552403_1139196_n.jpg



picture of "c" shaped egg - - took at an angle so you could see the egg and its reflection on the glass so you can get a "360*" view of the shape
28271_559002807259_52801994_32552404_2668864_n.jpg

in the background you can see a piece of drift wood, moss balls, and the aeration line inside the tank and the cord for the heater on the outside (trying to describe the shadows lol....just being thorough!)
 
ok, an update.
I was gone for less than two hours - went out to breakfast with a friend and stopped by a bait store for some more worms to start conditioning Kirby....and the egg that was on the wall in the "c" shape....has disappeared? I tried to use a flashlight to check the walls and the floor of the tank - didn't put my hand in to move any moss balls for fear of possibly crushing a tadpole if one had already morphed....

so two possibilites - -
1) it detached to continue morphing and somewhere in the tank is a teeny tadpole that i just can't see
2) it's dead


not a great update....but still. I figured that posting all of the experiences is better than not. I already have ideas about how I am going to do it next time around - - specifically a completely bare tank, no driftwood or moss balls to catch eggs, just bare as bare can be....and an OCD cleaning schedule of a 90% WC in the breeding tank before going to bed each night...less to worry about once the eggs are laid.


each trial will be a learning experience!
 
I'm sure the eggs will be fine :good: i have to say this will be an interesting thread to say the least :hyper: i'll be following it the whole way, on another note is there any chance you could pm me with some ACF forums? just want to know where is best to socialize and talk about them etc :D


Best of luck and keep the pics coming :)
 

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