Breeding African Cichlids

The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an interest in aquariums or fish keeping!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

JM

Aquarium Advice Freak
Joined
Aug 18, 2004
Messages
330
Location
NJ
I have 5 cichlids in my tank and recently i noticed one displaying some very odd behavior. This morning i noticed baby cichlids in the tank. I am assuming that the odd behavior by the one fish had to due with mating or protecting the babies. Now i don't know wut to do. Should i take the babies out of the tank or leave them in? I think the other adult cichlids will probably kill the babies if they find them. For now they are ok because they are hiding in some rocks at the bottom of the tank, but idk how long they can hide.
 
I'm not sure what species. I believe it is called a zebra. It is blue with dark vertical stripes. The babies are about 1/2 and inch long. The adult is being extremely aggressive towards the other fish and has recently killed one of the others.
 
You need to take out the babies. If the mother is not longer mouth brooding, the young are ready to go out on their own. What size tank is it?
 
Its a 30gal. I have 5, 4-5 inch cichlids. With several large rocks and many hiding places in the tank. I think the mother died because a couple days before i noticed the babies one of the adults died. I believe it was the mother because it appeared that she had a mouth full for a while before she died. aAnd now there are babies. I think it might be the male that is terrorizing everyone in the tank now. Maybe to protect a nest?? IDK much about these things breeding so i'm not really sure wuts going on.
 
Wow, I'm surprised the mother died. My male Africans rip each other up and the females are left pretty much alone. If you want to allow nature to take it's course, you can leave the young in their. If you want to raise them, set up a 10 gal and start removing all the decor--the babies are going to be hard to catch. On the flip side, removing all the decor to catch the young may allow the others to eat them :?
 
From personal experience, I'd leave the babies in the tank: they've survived this long and chances are they'll be able to continue doing so until they become large enough to not be "bite-sized". Mbuna aren't much for parental duties: once the female has released them for the final time, they're basically on their own. Sometimes they can be mistaken for food, often they're simply ignored. You WILL have to remove the adults and ALL tank decor to catch them, which can be very stressful. Also, netting fry that size can cause enough physical damage to actually kill them.


Your best bet would be to closely watch the females from now on and when you notice one "holding" (the bulging throat is a dead givaway), you can remove her to a nursery tank where she can release the fry and recouperate from the ordeal: holding females eat little, if any, so the rest in the nursery tank will allow her to regain her strength.
 
I think thats why the female died she didnt at for a long time while her mouth was bulging. So i think she starved. The babies seem to have a good hiding place under one of the larger rocks and they only peek out every now and then so i think they will be ok for now. When they get too big to hide under the rock i will take them out and move them so the adults dont bounce them around to much.
 
Back
Top Bottom