The female then hold the babies in her mouth for up to two more weeks, occasionally letting them out to feed them. Most new mothers will start releasing the babies about 2 weeks after you notice they are carrying them, but will suck them back in when danger threatens.
New mothers also have very small batches of eggs: around 10 or so. A mature female will have up to 30 eggs. The male fish has no part in the care and raising of young, and may happily eat the babies if he is present when they are released. I suggest a gallon tank for the mother and babies. Make sure the new tank is fully cycled and give it lots of tiny hiding places for the babies.
You can also try providing small hiding places for the baby fish in your main tank, but in my experience the adult fish find ways to eat the babies. If you intend to breed your fish, you should only get one species from any given genus. So for instance you might have 5 Pseudotropheus socolofi and 5 Melanchromis chipokae, but you wouldn't want to get any more Pseudotropeus or Melanochromis. After that, she will keep the fry safely inside her mouth even after hatching and spit them out once they develop into free-swimming fry.
Electric yellow cichlids hold their eggs for an average duration of 18 days. Females spawn on the flat rock surface before picking the eggs with their mouth and transporting them to the buccal cavity.
In general, they can hold around eggs. Also, first-time mothers will have smaller clutch sizes compared to experienced moms. In substrate-brooders, the clutch size can range from eggs for small shell breeders to thousands for big ones. Fertilized cichlid eggs have a yellow tint as opposed to stark white unfertilized eggs. Upon close inspection, you can also see tiny dots in the eggs, which are, in fact, eyes.
The eyes develop first, quickly followed by a tail. And what actually seems like the egg eventually transforms into a belly. On average, African cichlids breed once every six weeks. But the answer varies from species to species. One owner of a fish forum reported that his peacock cichlids breed once every one or two months. The second person shared that his geophagus cichlids bred once every two weeks.
It differs from cichlid to cichlid. The incubation period differs from cichlid to cichlid. If you strip the eggs early, you need to place them in a tumbler with ample aeration to avoid fungus buildup. It is usually a good idea to provide a couple of flakes every once in a while to the separated female.
She will sometimes eat these flakes if they are small enough that she can do so without swallowing her fry. Typically, drop the flake in there and give her a little while to eat it.
If she does not eat it, take the food out so it does not cloud the water. Also, she may eat some flakes during the last week of keeping the fry in her mouth. Some people have speculated that she is actually feeding the fry with these flakes. If you do not remove the female, she will often go into hiding. If you do not see a fish during feeding time for several days, it may be that she is hiding down in the rock work. As stated previously, she will not eat while holding the eggs so do not expect her to come out during feeding.
The female will typically wait weeks before allowing the fry to become free swimming. She may allow them to re-enter her mouth if they are threatened, but eventually they will be on their own. African cichlids tend to be very aggressive, especially mating dominant males. If you have cichlids, you probably will notice that one male in each species will become dominant and will wreak havoc on the other males and females.
This behavior becomes intensified during the mating process -- I have often seen a male cichlid that usually only bothered his own species start chasing anything and everything in the tank when he knew a female was ready to lay her eggs. If you start to see your male go crazy, it may very well be that he is getting ready to mate.
It is also important to generally provide females per male. This forces the male to spread his aggression and chasing around, thus allowing the other females some rest. If you put a ratio of male to female African cichlids in your tank, that one female will be chased nonstop and will eventually die. A popular method for getting the female to release the fry early is called stripping. This is used by breeders in order to ensure the fry are not released into the main tank and in order to force the female to not become so weak.
However, stripping can be quite stressful to a female as you are catching her, forcing her jaw open, and then dipping her in and out of the water so the fry can swim out. In general, letting the female go to term is the best choice.
The first thing you need to do before mating your cichlids is to ensure that your cichlids have reached sexual maturity. If the females are not big enough, it does not matter how much the male shakes, she is not going to mate with him. If, however, your females are big enough, there are several things you can do to entice them to mate. Mouth brooders typically mate on a flat, clean rock. Therefore, it is imperative that you provide them will several of these. They also prefer them to be in secluded areas of the tank so try to match this condition as well.
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