Should I Be Feeding Mbuna That Is Holding

[Scott MacAdam]

Here's my thought,

I've isolated the holding mbuna in question in her own tank. Now, before I was feeding the tank because of all the other fish but would putting food in her tank (only her) be doing any good? will she be able to eat with all those fry in her mouth or will she spit them out for a second and eat?

The reason I ask is that I don't want to just drop a bunch of food into the tank and have it sit there and affect the water stats, especially with the fry in there.

 

[elisew]

The female cannot eat whilst holding so there is no point in giving her any food

As the females hold for approx 4 weeks she`s going to really need food once she spits though so give her a small amount to get her eating again. The fry will eat finely crushed flake food or tiny bits that are in the tank when you feed the female.
Do you have anything for the fry to hide in once the female has spat them because she might look to eat the fry if they can`t hide somewhere?

Once you know that she`s spat all of the fry put her back into her normal tank and keep an eye on her that she`s getting some food when you feed the rest

 

[Scott MacAdam]

Yeah, I'm 2 batches of fry in from my Mbuna tank but the thing is that I was never able to catch the females this early (she's about 2 weeks in).

Last time I just moved my holding fish over to my growout tank and she spat them all out within an hour so I scooped her back up and put her back in the main tank.

I'm running a 10 gal (until she drops her fry) she's about 2-3 inches long. Lots of rocks and hiding spots by the way.

After that I plan to move the fry over to the growout tank (40gal long) with the fry from the last batch (free swimming for about a week now) once they are a comparable size. I've also got a bunch of spare tanks in my back room if I need them but I'm just using these at the moment. I'm assuming the new, and thus smaller, fry will be fine in the 10gal for a while until they get a bit bigger and can be safely placed with the others that are a few weeks older. They've gotta catch up in size at some time.

I'll be moving them to the LFS once they are selling size anyway.

Thanks for the speed reply. It's my first time breeding mouth-brooders. If you can give me any other advice that I'll need in the weeks to come it would be greatly appreciated.

~Scott

 

[elisew]

No problem, you`re welcome

The only problem I can see with you catching the female (or any of your females) so early on is that due to stress she may possibly spit the fry before they are developed enough. If possible in future I would suggest that you try and wait until the 3 week point if you can. Fry that have been spat within about 2-3 weeks of each other should be fine together, just keep an eye on them because the older ones can sometimes attack the younger ones. Move a couple of bits of rock or shells around when you put new fry into a tank as you should with your adults in your main tank.

Finely crushed flake or food such as ZM premium granular can be crushed down for the fry to feed on. Feed them small amounts 3-4 times a day and 50% water change every couple of days and you`ll see the fry grow pretty quickly

I personally only remove the fry that I find in the weir and sump on my setup, I`d rather leave the females to spit in the main tank and thin out the numbers when any surviving fry have grown into juvis.

Might be an idea for you to post in the African/Old world section in future as you`ll probably get more appropriate info and replies to your Mbuna queries in there

 

[Scott MacAdam]

Yeah, I've made plenty of posts in the old world section but it seems it takes a week to get a reply and a lot of the threads I've made there had no reply at all.

I caught her using the bottle trap trick so I didn't have to net her at all and I'm hardcore about my water stats. lol. The 10 gal was EXACTLY the same as the main tank at the point of transfer (ph/ammonia/nitrate/nitrite/gh/kh/temp)

I'll leave the new fry in the 10gal for a week or 2 before moving them to the growout tank just to be sure and I've been feeding them wardley african cichlid flakes that I've crushed up finely.

Again, Thanks for the replies. I appreciate it

 

[robinreliant23]

I love mouth brooders! Awesome to watch them spawn, hold and spit the live out. Mind you when I had Mbuna I never let them spit naturally as my first lot was spat over night and the mother ate them! So after that when she was near to spit I would gently help her spit them out into a fry breeding trap and then let her stay in the fry tank for a couple of days to feed her up and let her gain her strength before she went back into the battle field tank (if Mbuna aren't eating, they're generally fighting or spawning LOL)