Aphyosemion australe

These photos, even a little out of focus, should let you know why most people fall in love with these fish. The males are gorgeous! 

A australe Orange pair

A australe Orange male

A australe Orange male

A australe Cap Esterias BSWG 97/24

A australe Gold Spotless, from Germany

My pairs are kept in tanks of 1-2 gallons with a sponge filter, java moss, and a spawning mop. They are easy to spawn, but the fry are a little small for baby brine shrimp when they first hatch. I start them out with green water and micro worms. It is usually a week before I am comfortable with the fry being large enough to take brine shrimp.  I start adding a small amount almost immediately so it is available, but then I have to be quick to clean it up before it fouls the tank.

With a young breeding pair, I wait until they have fry hatch out in the tank before I pay any attention to their spawning. Really young pairs will lay eggs, but they have a low fertility rate and the fry seem to be weak. Once fry start to appear in the tank and look strong and healthy I will start pulling the mop about every 2 weeks. If the mop has a lot of eggs, I will let it drip dry for several hours. Then I place it in a fish bag, baggy tie it, and put it in my cardboard box for a week to 10 days. Be sure to label the fish information, the mop pull date, and the check date.

After the week to 10 days I will take out the mop. I will have a small container with room temperature aged water in it. Now comes the fun part - picking the eggs out of the mop. I pick the eggs out with my fingers, placing the eggs into the container. Usually by the time I have finished picking the eggs, the first ones have hatched. Micro worms are the first food for several days. Green water, too, if I have it.

Drying the mop and storing it for a while gives me a good hatch of fry that are all the same age. It is much easier to care for one shoe box with 30-40 fry the same age than a dozen containers with 3-4 fry each.

If you have trouble spawning these fish. Try this - put one pair in an one gallon size tank (critter tank) with a sponge filter, a mop that at least 1/3 draps over the bottom of the tank, and some java moss. Have a thin layer of small gravel on the bottom. I get the largest production doing them this way. I think the confined quarters keeps them close enough together that they remember what they are supposed to do. I put the high floating side of the mop next to the sponge filter. I think that keeps better aeration and oxygen flow around the mop for the eggs. Plus you will find eggs on the top and sides of the filter, as well as in the gravel.

A australe Chocolate

I use this method with all the Aphyo's and the mop spawning Fundulopanchax with good success.