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I have two young J. regani and one calvus...I want to try breeding both species. What are the minimum numbers of each I should have to start with?

Thanks

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There is water at the bottom of the ocean

personally, for pair spawners I like to start with 4-6 juveniles, but the more you have (preferably from different sources but that's not always possible) the better chance you have of them pairing up naturally.

good luck with them, they both are really cool species. I used to have some small yellow calvus but the tank they were in crashed.

For calvus, 3-5. Its always good to have extras since you can sell off adults for a hefty profitable price anyways.

Julies, you can be lucky by picking the largest and smallest in the tank and possibly getting a pair. If you'd get the largest two and smallest two to be on the safe side, you'd almost be gauranteed a pair.

Thanks

These are going to be mail-order fish so I won't get to choose. I emailed about availability last night, I decided to go with a total of 6 each. This will be a different source than where I obtained the original fish.

Do you consider either or both of these easy to breed?

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There is water at the bottom of the ocean

I've never spawned calvus but from what I've read of them I'd put them at at least medium to medium-high difficulty simply because of how slowly they grow and how long it takes them to reach maturity. if nothing else it's a great test of patience.

Relatively moderate as Jason said, since they take quite a while to grow up. Julies usually are easier than calvus. Calvus sometimes are picky when choosing mates and a place to spawn at.

Julies spawn quite easily once their (I think its 10-12 months?? old) given that they have a nice little pot (usually a completely closed off pot or a pot open down to the substrate with one hole does the trick).

Now spawning calvus are like spawning bristlenoses, they need to be the right size and have the right territory or they wont spawn. I've seen some people put two of the bottoms of the saucers used for flower pots together, and carefully drilling out a hole on the side so the female can go in but the male cant. Or, you can fork over a few bucks for those nifty little caves by rosenthal pottery.

Where are you ordering from? neptunes or mainlycichlids.com?? I've been to mainly cichlids and its pretty good, hardly any dead fish (only in the new arrival tanks).