Breeding

Spawning and Behavior

You want to breed your Severum or need to know what will happen if they do? You've come to the right place! Here we will go over how these beautiful fish spawn and what behaviors you may see before and after they have found a mate.

Finding a Mate

Before anything happens, your male and female need to pair off. This takes time and patience on our part. Severum don't have a specific time of year when they mate, so they can breed any time of the year all as long as the correct conditions are met. Finding a mate for your male or female Severum can be a task in it's self. Sometimes a male and female will never pair off leaving you with no babies. Raising Severum together from juvenile to adolescents raises your chances in getting a pair but still is no guarantee. True love cant be forced not even in the fish world. However, once you have a bonded pair you will notice the two together, following each other around. Never to far a part from each other.

Mating Process

Once you have a bonded pair, mating is just a matter of time and right conditions. Having a slightly higher tank temperature of 81-85 and lowering the pH a little bit may trigger the mating process. Make sure you have a flat slate or rock area for them to breed on. These fish are not mouth brooders, but instead lay eggs on smooth surfaces. If you don't have any items like this you may see your paired Severum digging or cleaning off an area of debris. Once, this is done the mating rituals will begin with lip locking and/or tail-slapping behaviors. Finally, once they are ready the female will lay her eggs over the cleaned off area and the male will follow behind spreading sperm over the eggs fertilizing them.

What About the Eggs?

Once the eggs have been fertilized, experienced parents will guard them until the fry are old enough to defend themselves. Some parents will even move the babies to a hollowed out cave or dug out substrate spot to protect them better. Younger parents however, may eat the eggs and even the fry until they mature more. For this reason, you may want to scoop out the eggs and put them in an egg tumbler/breeding tank until they are big enough to be with their parents again. If you begin to see eggs turning white these eggs are not fertilized and will start to grow fungus on them. This fungus can spread to all the eggs in the group killing off any fertile eggs you may have. It is recommended you remove these eggs if possible with out damaging the good ones. Dosing with Methylene Blue can also be a safe method to treat and protect eggs from over fungal growth.