Monday 18 August 2008

More joy?

After a thoroughly enjoyable weekend at V Festival in Chelmsford, I discovered that one of the mouthbrooders has released her fry. I estimate that there are about 20 of them, which is amazing given how small the parents are. A few died off, but the rest seem pretty strong. I should end up with around 50 once the other two females have released.

Better yet, it turns out the male Blackbelt wasn't totally off the mark. I have around 30 Blackbelt wrigglers now being heavily guarded by a very irate looking female. The fry are very big, which you'd expect from such large eggs. Hopefully they will get to the free-swimming stage okay and go for the ZM food.

The other bit of potentially exciting news is that I think my rams are about to spawn. The female definitely had a very distended spawning tube this morning.

Fingers crossed.
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Introduction

I have always been fascinated by cichlids. They are among the most stunningly beautiful of fishes; they come in all shapes and sizes (there is a cichlid to suit everyone); and they have some seriously awesome behaviour. Since I started keeping fish 15 years ago I have kept and bred several species, but I never had enough tanks to house all the individual pairs I wanted (and their subsequent fry). In April '08, I was lucky enough to have a space-heated fishroom built into the garage conversion my girlfriend and I were having done. This diary is my way of keeping track of all my fish breeding projects. I hope you find it informative!