All,
I started my first Gold Ocellatus tank after picking up some at BFD.
I ran across the following journal articles on the interwebs that discuss their breeding / shell-defense / shell-building behavior.
They may be of interest to others who are keeping / breeding occies, or may be an interesting read in general.
They gave me a couple new ideas as a newbie - for example, I was placing shells with the opening on the bottom (i.e., at sand-level). I didn't realize they prefer to bury the entire shell and so it would have been better to place the shells with the openings facing up. I also started with escargot shells, which seem to be only sold in the "extra large" variety on Amazon / eBay. These ended up being a bit too big / difficult for them to move and re-orient, so I will likely pick up some smaller apple snail shells at some point (or PVC elbows if I ever move some to a specific breeding tank).
If anyone has any other good articles to share, let me know!
I started my first Gold Ocellatus tank after picking up some at BFD.
I ran across the following journal articles on the interwebs that discuss their breeding / shell-defense / shell-building behavior.
They may be of interest to others who are keeping / breeding occies, or may be an interesting read in general.
They gave me a couple new ideas as a newbie - for example, I was placing shells with the opening on the bottom (i.e., at sand-level). I didn't realize they prefer to bury the entire shell and so it would have been better to place the shells with the openings facing up. I also started with escargot shells, which seem to be only sold in the "extra large" variety on Amazon / eBay. These ended up being a bit too big / difficult for them to move and re-orient, so I will likely pick up some smaller apple snail shells at some point (or PVC elbows if I ever move some to a specific breeding tank).
If anyone has any other good articles to share, let me know!