For the last 10 years my main interest in fish have been African cichlids. I also kept some South American cichlids, but 80% of the fish I’ve kept have always been Africans. Over the last two years I’ve had a growing interest in catfish. It all started with Farlowellas.

I’m the type of hobbyist that is always looking for something different. While looking through some of my books to get some ideas of what kinds of fish I would like to try breeding, I came across the Loricarids (in particular the Whiptails and Farlowella species). I decided that since they looked challenging and were readily available I would give them a try.
It only took two weeks before I found both types. I purchased four of each. I guess I was lucky to find them so quickly because the selection of fish in my area isn’t that good and I have not seen them in the stores since. I was able to identify the Farlowellas as F. acus. I could not positively identify the Whiptails.

I put the Whiptails in a heavily planted 55 gallon tank were they have been living for two years. There are enough plants and driftwood in the tank that I rarely see them. Although they are doing fine I have not had any babies from them yet.
The Farlowellas went into a 30 gallon tank with a lot of driftwood in it. The pH was at 7.6 and the water was soft and the temperature was kept at 78°F. When I first bought them, two were about 6” long and the other two were 3-4” long. I didn’t know it at the time but they can be sexed by their size, the males are 2-3” longer then the females. After 18 months of growing the males were 8-9” long and the females were about 5-6” long. Their diet consisted mainly of spirulina discs.
It was at this time that I confirmed that the females were the smaller two fish. One day their bellies swelled up. It looked like each of the two smaller fish had swallowed a marble. Two weeks later one of the males was spending all of his time in one area on the middle of the front glass. After two days one of the females joined him and the next day there was 20 eggs on the glass. After the eggs were laid the female left the spawning sight and never returned. The male stayed and guarded the eggs. I believe he chose that spawning sight because there was a strong current of water flowing down that area of the glass from the power filter on the tank. Each day some of the eggs were turning white and after four days all of the eggs were gone. Two weeks later they spawned again in the same place, and like the first time the eggs were infertile and disappeared after four days.

Things were quiet for the next two months. Then they spawned for the third time. This time things were different, the eggs didn’t turn white. They had laid over fifty eggs this time and because they were laid on the front glass I could see the fry developing inside the eggs. I didn’t know how long it should take for the eggs to hatch but I knew that the male had to help the fry out of the eggs. After 7 days the eggs were getting very dark and I started to worry that the male didn’t know how to help the fry escape from the egg and they would just die. On the eighth day half of the eggs hatched and the next day the rest of them hatched.

The fry were almost a ½” long, had big round heads and long skinny tails. As they grew over the next few days they began to look more like the parents. Every day their heads would get slimmer and their body would grow longer. After a week they were ¾” long and looked just like the parents. Their behavior and eating habits were the same as the adults.
I found the Farlowellas to be interesting for two reasons:

1) Their overall appearance is unique. They are definitely made to blend into their surroundings. When they are on the driftwood you don’t see them unless your specifically looking for them on the driftwood. In the wild they spend their time on driftwood and in the leaf litter on the edges of the streams. When they are in the leaf litter it must be impossible to see them, they would look just like another stick. They look so much like a stick, when my girl friend first saw them she called them “stick fish”.

2) Compared to cichlids their spawning behavior is unique. The male alone watches over the eggs and then the male has to help the fry escape from their eggs. Because the male was inexperienced the first time the fry didn’t hatch until eight days. The second time they spawned he helped them hatch in four days.

Now that I’ve been successful with the Farlowellas it’s time to turn my attentions to the Whiptails. Hopefully their spawning will be the subject of my next article.