Hey everyone - sorry I have not been posting very much. I was off on vacation and had limited access to the internet. However, just thought I would pass along that the yellow lab I mentioned was holding spit out her fry while I was gone. I came home to 17 little ones and they all seem to be doing great. My daughter loves them.
Yeah, like poetic said - it is a very popular cichlid. My dominant male is the prettiest fish in the tank. He really colored up nicely. If you click on my profile you will see some pics of my yellow labs although they are not the best shots.
I also have a red zebra (actually an orange colored cichlid) that is holding so I am going to remove her to a separate tank until she spits out the fry.
In terms of parenting, I removed the mom from the fry tank and put her back in the main tank so the fry are all by themselves. The mom will only remain a good parent for a while and then you are at risk for her eating them.
hmm... i started out with 5 labs, and now i have over 30 specimens in that tank... i never took out the parents or anything... labs are herbivours and as long as there are fed they wont eat thier young... they will actually still protect them... they punked one of my synodontis multipictactus to death once... the only mbuna that i've seen eat thier own young was a colony of a. melachromis... and peacocks...
mbuna usually want to build up a huge healthy colony in the wild... so they will protect thier young and out grow neighboring colonies of fish... so if you have a colony of p. demasoni and c. labidochromis one will out grow the other and take over the tank... the larger colony will even breed more than the other...
You are right in general, gumbii - but my tank is not a species tank. Any babies I let be born in the main tank are quickly eaten up by the other mbunas. Also, I have heard quite a few people say they left their mom in the fry tank and she ate the young. I'm sure there are cases where both things happen. However, I can guarantee that demasoni, acei, and red zebras will eat yellow lab fry. That is how I keep my numbers down. I'll separate one holding female at a time and let the others stay in the main tank and be eaten. I also separate the mom so she doesn't get beat up by the males. It is very hard on them seeing as they don't eat for 3-4 weeks. Separating them allows you to keep the female separated until she builds her strength back. The females I don't separate always live through the harrassment, but they are much worse off than the ones I separate and let rebuild their strength before reintroduction. Just my experience though. We are all free to do as we like. That is the fun of the hobby.
demasoni sometimes get bloat like tropheus moorii... so be carefull if you see them eating fry or other meaty meals... i usually let algae grow like crazy in my tank... so the demasoni and other mbuna are always munching on something... the only fish that i have that eat thier young after a wile are my south american cichlids... if i don't feed the females they will eat the fry... all of they...
Yeah, I have 16 mbunas in there so I don't think any one of them gets enough fry to bloat. I also let the algae grow and never feed them meaty foods. I feed spirulina, zuchini, and lettuce.
