The trip was mostly uneventful until we hit winter weather on the way back. Bob, who lives a little over an hour from me stated that he had to crawl home in his SUV. It was pretty slow going just north on Cincinnati but we made it back all in one piece with our new fish!
During the acclimation process and the weeks that followed a few of the fish were lost due to unknown reasons. These fish were acquired with hollow bellies and sunken eyes, an indication that they are on their way out. The remaining fish pulled through on a diet of Repashy Super Foods and baby brine shrimp. As stated before, Ken regularly travels to Uruguay and he brought another group of these fish back in February of 2015. Ken and I made further arrangements for more of these fish to head my way along with another undescribed species of Hisonotus. This group of fish arrived in much better condition.
The summer of 2015 found us moving our entire fishroom to our home in western Columbus. Over 100 aquariums with over 80 species of fish were moved in 4 days! The last time I moved that much stuff in such a short time, was when we had to be out of our old home by the end of the month. That is a story for another day. Needless to say everyone was stressed from the move!
Since summer, all of our fish have settled back in and for the most part are doing well. Due to the cooler weather, I have since closed off the door leading into our basement. This has helped the temperature stay around 70 F. With the heat and dehumidifier running the moisture content is around 40%. A few weeks ago I also recently added an LED light and plants to the Hisonotus aky tank to make them feel more at home. Well a combination of the above probably caused spawning behavior out of the group.
Yesterday while doing water changes I was cleaning the filter out when low and behold baby Emerald Otos started moving around. Of course I always thought I could spawn these like our Otothyropsis and Parotocinclus but applying theory to practice are two different things. I almost jumped for joy seeing the fry. And while this species has been spawned in captivity a few times, it is still uncommon. With that, I give you a few photos of the baby Hisonotus for your viewing pleasure. More updates are sure to follow! Again, thank you to Ken Davis for making this fish available!
