Worth the Effort – Bitterling |
Brian Flemming, Dalkeith AS
(First printed in the FSAS 1983 Newsletter)
The bitterling – a small, active little fish much
sought after for coldwater furnished aquarium. Although
native to Britain and southern Europe this fish commands
a fairly high price in most pet shops and in my own area
a price that has increased by more than 50% in the last
six months.
The only reason that I can think of is the fact that the
breeding of this fish takes a lot of time, space and patience.
Breeding the fish is not the problem – the problem
is the freshwater mussels that the bitterling spawns into.
These mussels are very hard to keep alive because they do
not readily accept prepared foods. The best food I have
used is a liquid mixture of livebearer Liquifry, lettuce
and garden peas. I keep my mussels in half-gallon tanks
and feed them just enough of this mixture to turn the water
cloudy. After about 15 – 18 hours this water will
be clear and the mussels will be ready for feeding again.
After several good feeds the mussels will be ready to use
for spawning the bitterling.
When you have decided to breed your fish, select a well
matched pair, because during spawning they have a tendency
to mouth wrestle, cichlid style. The male, when it is ready
to spawn, gets a beautiful metallic green stripe along his
back and down behind the gills, making it look rather like
a saddle. The base of the tail and caudal peduncle will
turn red and the lateral line will turn light blue. The
female will become very full around the belly and develop
a long white ovipositor, which I have seen grow to twice
the length of the fish. The black patch on her dorsal fin
will become very intense and a white line will form along
the top edge of the patch.
The breeding tank can be anything from a gallon upwards.
A layer of sand should be placed on the bottom and a couple
of plants could be added as hiding places. The temperature
of the water should be 68 – 70ºF (20–21ºC).
Place three mussels in the tank and then add a pair of fish.
If the fish are ready the male will start inspecting the
mussels immediately. He checks in inlet and outlet vents
to see that the mussel is processing a lot of water, the
sign of a healthy specimen.
The male will then drive the female to the mussel where
she inserts her ovipositor into the inlet vent and deposits
her eggs. He fertilises the eggs by releasing his sperm
over the inlet vent, this is then drawn in by the mussel,
through the cavity where the eggs are (thus fertilisation
could not take place with an inactive mussel). The pair
will probably use all three mussels to lay their hundred
or so eggs in.
I have found the fry take anything from 21 days to 39 days
to appear outside the mussel. During this time they have
taken nothing from the mussel other than small particles
of food passing through the mussel in the water. Once outside
the mussel the fry will take brine shrimp but they also
grow just as fast on the same mix as I feed the mussels,
some fry when given a choice will feed on the mix rather
than the live food.
This is the method that I have found the most effective
for rearing this beautiful little fish, it may not be the
method that suits you but if more serious aquarists managed
to breed bitterling, I’m sure it’s asking price
in the pet shops would drop making it a much more popular
fish.
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