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I Have Bred Black Ghost Knife's


benckie

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hi my name is shane benck i live in bunbury western australia and i just bred black ghost knifes just wanted to tell every one asfar as i know not to many people have ! It looks like im the secon to bred them in australia but i havnt been able to find a name email or an excat location of the other person. Ive sold the breding pair last night and will be a little while yet befor i let every one in the secret of sexing and breeding them.

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thes pic,s are of bgk fry around 6 to 8 weeks

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Well done

Its not something I have seen much off though I know of 2 definate breedings of these guys on the Gold Coast

One was a total accident didnt realise till he saw some fry during a gravel Vac

The other was trying to spawn them and succeeded

Though Congratulations

I have heard a few different things to breed these guys and apparantly the parents dont mind a feed on the fry

The one guy who was trying to breed them in very quiet on his technique though the other guy freely told whoever asked

Brad

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Congrats & well done.

I know of 3 others for sure, few maybes.

First I heard the guy above who didn't even know at first. As mentioned above by Brad, he bred them a few times. wegot to observe what happens a few times since. His set up seemed to mimmick what I have heard others have set up on purpose. Except for the use of chinese containers, his set up was for his to look at not breed.

We didn't know they were rare, as in breeding back then, he used to sell his young to Bernies Pet Barn. Ben dosen't visit forums, isn't into that sort of thing, therefore not documented. Sorry he is a skateboarding, metal lover etc, I haven't seen him for 3-4 years, i dropped out of the "scene" :lol3:

The one Brad mentioned above who dosen't want to share is connected with G&S Aquarium on the Gold Coast. I have met him at Auctions up here, I mentioned the breeding from my mate, shared some information with him to get a response, he wasn't keen to share back any info, or talk about it at all, big deal :cryblow::p

The other I have heard of & people have assured me they saw the youngens is Shaneoo7, on Lungy's forum & ex Qld cichlid forum. I believe he sold his pair after the first spawn. Once again someone asked for information, he offered to sell the information, after breeding them just once :lol3: I posted up what I had to share as did another member, I think name is Bryce2003.

I have heard rumours twice since of people breeding these, but since I am not so much in the trade anymore I cannot confirm.

Oh sorry one more, The previous owner of Aquariums Alive{Chris} had a customer sell him some, he stated they used to ripped out the filter wool in a box filter & laid in that.

Just so I can confirm that I have seen the deed,

Eggs are laid white, turn brown. Eggs hatch in 4-7 days. The young at first are a brown colour.

Both sexes have red flashes in their tails when they are keen to breed, mate used to try & do a huge water change when there was a change in atmosphere pressure, ie; storms were good. They spawned not long after big water changes. His tank was riddled with algae & had constant rock/ metal music around too. {doubt that mattered}

Part of the mating ritual looked like the fish were wrestling, ie; rolling in hay.

Female lays eggs head down to the ground like she is feeding off the bottom. Eggs come out from just under her head.

Ideal set up seems to be with large black pebbles & chinese containers. That way eggs can be seen & removed. Parents will eat them.

My mate did say the young did start to venture out of the pebbles at the 2-3 week stage, so he had to catch them out before then.{never used containers}

Fry are sensitive, he had a high death rate at the start, small live culture helped.

Tank set up with fast water flow, mate also had a big aqua clear on the tank. Other set ups I have heard of is that they try to simulate rainfall.

Males head is shaped more like a horses head, females head is more slender. His eyes are higher in the head & her eyes are lower, to the front of the head, by the mouth.

Bryce did find some information on a large scale breeding set up in Ecuador, if anyone wants info, I will pass it on. My mate dosen't give a hoot, when I first told him about how rare they are to breed & the dramas on information, he laughed. I have/ had his blessing to share.

Any info, will be shared, just pm or ask.

Sorry to jack the thread,

Frenchy :)

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  • 3 weeks later...

Congrats on the spawn. Thats amazing. :thumb

Hope you share the details with us one day so we can all learn, unless of course you plan to go into business or something like that. :)

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  • 1 month later...

No worries. I would be bragging too, not that common. I can see where Shane is coming from. If he has sold the pair on, be nice for the next person to make money. "But" one of the hard parts is getting 2 decent sized ghosties that get along in the first place, m&f, then set up tank, raise fry...

The article from Bryce2003 I mentioned...

Mass breeding ghosties

He would of got some info off a breeder too. ;)

The reason I passed on info, is that I was annoyed at a previous persons post about this topic years ago. He offered to sell info too. For me, we are all on forums to pass on our knowledge & help others.

Frenchy :)

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 3 months later...

Just thought would add my experiences.

Being good mates with shane007 I have to stick up fer him and say that he did help quite a few people out for free. To the extent of inviting me over and showing me the equipment he was using at the time. He sure copped a fair amount of crap over it at the time despite the fact he was a FISHBREEDER at the time and jus trying to make back some $$$ to support his hobby!

I managed to get fry a few times but never managed to raise them to sale-able size.

My opinion? they are as hard to breed as zebra danios.

It's just harder to get breeding pairs is all.

I used air powered sponge filters on three tanks with marbles on the bottom. Caught out and moved parents every 2 weeks. After 3 weeks without parents I would remove all marbles and try spot fry. Added greenwater and a mix of crushed pellet/flake/wafer. The sponge filters were nice and mature and only rarely squeezed out.

The fry are as small as rainbow fry at first, and apparently send out a message (electro-location?) already. This enables larger BKN to find and eat them, hence the moving parents.

I was told that the parents would stress and not breed if I moved every 2 weeks, was also told they needed high water flow. Both turned out to be false.

As to raising fry, knowing what I know today I imagine I would have much better results. Most of my problem last time was the need to leave the setup every few weeks to go away and play dress ups for the gov.

As to a challenge... you could take a leaf out of my book and help me out with the robusta. Far as I know no one has ever bred bullrout in a fish tank before. Only just managed to get another adult recently. Now have 2 adult and 5 medium in a 6x2x2. Still in the research phase with them... and ya been there fer a few months now. But wow what an amazing fish and I won't half be stoked if I even jus get eggs.

One of my adults has a different shaped mouth and was off eating for a bit.... damned if I didn't start wondering if they were mouthbrooders LOL!

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Thanks for sharing. I don't understand the whole secrecy thing in regards to breeding the BGK.

There was a chance to make some cash.

At least it appeared that way at first.

I am sure if you tried to get half the secrets out of the queensland pleco breeders you would see just how carefully breeders will guard their little tricks of da trade.

i agree on one point though.

If you are gonna brag on a forum, then you better cough up the details.

if you don't want brag rights, then cool corner the market and get rich.

Me i like kudo's over $$$$

kudos from the brotherhood usually translates into more fish than the $$$ you would get selling would buy.

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  • 1 month later...
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  • 2 months later...

There was a bloke on petlink a while ago that had a breeding pair for sale and a care sheet on how to breed them. It was a good read. He had pictures as well. There have been a few to breed them but not heaps.

Now breeding clown loaches thats a task.

Cameron

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Now breeding clown loaches thats a task.

Cameron

Bloke is doing it in Russia (apparently) after hormone injecting the fish with a type of sea bream extract.

Dont know if it counts, but it has to help reduce the stress on wild stocks :thumbup:

I will have a hunt for the link

here it is:

http://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/pfk/...m.php?news=1633

he is also producing hybrids too...argh!!

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