Ack! Overrun by holding cichlids

[bettalove]

For months, the only cichlid that has been consistent in holding has been my Orange Blotch Peacock, normally spitting fry at the beginning of each month, though this month she didn't get "pregnant" until just recently, so she gave me a little bit of a break. Before that I had one Yellow Lab spit, but that was only 7 fry and there were no problems with finding a tank to put the babies in. This month, besides the OB holding, I have an ACEI, one Electric Blue Johanni and I think one yellow lab. I can't get a good look at the yellow lab's jaw because it keeps hiding in the pvc pipe at the back of the tank, but I'm pretty sure since she won't come out to eat that she's holding. The Johanni surprised me because I was convinced that it was subdominant male after it lost the orangish color it had when I bought it, though I have recently read that color switching is normal in capativity for this species. It's now more of a gray blue and no where near as bright as my male.

I'm not really complaining as it's very exciting, but also a bit overwhelming as I don't know exactly when the ACEI and Johanni began holding. I know the OB began holding last week so I've got time with her and because of the experience of her past holdings, I can usually tell by the size of the jaw when it's time to move her, but I have no idea when I will need to put the ACEI and Johanni in the "birthing" tanks. I just noticed the Johanni holding yesterday and if I go by the experience I've had with my Peacock, the pouch of her jaw is much larger than the Peacock's has ever gotten; however, by the research I've done, it would make sense since the Johanni can hold up to 60 eggs, whereas my Peacock has only held 18 each time.

I just thought I'd share my exciting news with all the other cichlid fans out there.

 

[TheeMon]

yeay for you, what do you do w/ all your fry?

 

[bettalove]

So far I've kept them all, but will cull them when I need to and either take them to the next aquarium society auction or to my lfs in exchange for store credit. It all depends on how much room I have when they mature, how well the fry tolerate each other as they mature, how often the females hold and how many they actually spit.

 

[thecichlidaddict]

Yeah, they're like a beautiful aquatic virus! Due to limited space I only keep the species worth the most money, the rest become fish food. I couldn't imagine keeping all the fry in my little apartment

 

[treefrog]

When mbunas hold their jaws look totally different than peacocks, much more pronounced due to their jaw structure.

 

[bettalove]

I found a picture that I dated May 5th of a group of my ACEI's together. The one facing the camera appears to be the one that is holding. The pouch of her jaw is definitely more pronounced than the three others in the picture. I'm not sure if the date I put on the picture is the date that I took the photo or the date when I removed it from the camera's disk. In either event, if she was already holding around the 5th of May enough to be noticeable, I'm guessing that I need to get her moved to a tank by herself very soon. I couldn't find any information regarding how long they actually hold other than "several weeks". Based on the date of that picture, I'm determining that she's been holding for, at the very least, three weeks, so I'm going to spend today re-adjusting my fry tanks to make room for her.

I hope the Johanni has a couple more weeks so I can finish repainting and retiling the spawning room and get the rest of my tanks back up and running. Once that's acheived, I won't have the space restrictions that I'm facing at the moment. Though I could always remove the male betta I have in a ten gallon while conditioning him for breeding and use that temporarily for the Johanni. I picked the wrong time to remodel my spawning room.

 

[bettalove]

Just a quick update... the ACEI released her babies in the net when I caught her. I'm going to post a pic of the babies in the photo section in a few minutes.