Tropical Fish

[chris]

Hi all,

as some of you are aware i keep and breed (or try) various tropical fish. among these i have a pair of Kribenis which i have had for a few months now. the week after i bought them they actually dug out a cave under a peice of slate and spawned in it with the eggs stuck to the underside of the slate (roof of the cave). both parents guarded the eggs, however they proved to be infertile and never hatched. they spawned a second time after this an the eggs myseriously vanished overnight, which i have put down to the plec as it's the only thing in the whole tank that refuses to be chased away!

Since then i have changed my entire setup to include more slate and rock and the Kribs have continued to excavate caves everywhere but with no signs of spawning (at least i couldn't see any eggs). A few days ago this all changed and they sucessuflly spawned in one of there newer caves with a very narrow entrance which excludes the plec from eating the eggs, all this was unoticed by myself. i did know that the kribs were in the cave but it just seemed to be their normal behaviour to me. the day after my birthday i looked into the tank on the night and noticed around 30 krib fry swimming around with both parents, and the mother being very aggressive toward any other fish that dares go near:)

i now have all these fry feeding off newly hatched brine shrimp, and all gping well this will be the first egglaying fish i have sucessfully bred. maybe i'll post a picture later when i photo the weavers etc.

Chris:grin:

[laurab]

Chris, is there no end to your talents :razz:

[PAUL HEARN]

G'day Chris,

Congratulations on breeding your Kribensis mate, I hope all goes well with them.:grin:

BTW do you still have any of the Endlers livebearers you had before?

Paul.:wink:

[chris]

Hi Paul,

the endlers livebears i had lasted a grand total of 48 hours:-x , absolutely nothing wrong with my water quality as it was checked so was ovbiously dodgy fish. however the male of the 2 lived long enough to cross breed with a guppy which resulted in the lye tails i was breeding. unfortunately there was some genetic defect with the guppies (lots of inbreeding thanks to mass production) so i terminated the project of my own guppy breed. fantastic looking fish, but it's not right to breed something with genetic defects

Chris:wink:

[Waxbillman]

well done Chris

sounds fascinating to me.

sounds like you are good at everthing!!

Matthew

[chris]

sounds like you are good at everthing!!


i wish:lol: :lol: :lol:

just fed em anyway, the fry all have nice fat pink little bellies fulll of newly hatched brine shrimp. it shouldn't be long now before i can step up the size of the food on offer, as soon as they are on bloodworm then the growth rate should go crazy!

Chris:wink:

[PAUL HEARN]

Hi Chris,

It is a great shame that you lost the strain of Endlers you had, they were goregous Fish, but as you say they were mass produced for some muppett to make a profit from them.:mad:

Best of luck with the Kribs though, but where are the photos?:grin:

Paul.

[chris]

HI Paul,

the battery in the camera died and it needs charging again, i'll get some tomorrow:grin:

Chris:wink:

[Gary]

kribs are quality fish, really nice decent size as well

[dave85]

hey chris,

nice one! kribensis ciclids not bad ;)

what will you do with all those fry?

thanks
Dave

[chris]

i'm good friends with the local aquatics manager so i shouldn't have any problems selling them on:wink:

probably keep a few though as they are great fish

Chris:wink:

[chris]

Hi Paul,

i've taken some photos as requested, although the fry don't show up particularly well on them, and you can't see all of them in any one photo. my original estimate of 30 odd fry seems a bit off, more like 40/50 now:grin:

the 2 kribs you will see, the larger is the male and the smaller and more colourfull, with the bright red belly is the female. strangly enough the female is far more colourfull than the male whereas every book i've ever read on these guys clearly state the male is more colourfull and back this up with photos!! guess the ones in the book are wild caught or second gen, whereas mine will most likely be from an establish captive population- shame you lose colour with some species the more they are bred.

Chris

[chris]

Hi All,

the fry are now fairly large (compared to what they were anyway), however since the parents spawned in a mixed community they have wreaked some havok to put it lightly! they have shredded the siamese fighter's fins (fortunately i caught him and he's almost fully recovered now), tormented the clown loaches to a point where they weren't coming out to feed, killed a few white cloud minnows:cry: , and even decided to take on the beast aka the pleco!

after i noticed fish were starting to go 'missing' i've caught the lot of em and moved them into another tank, leaving only the kribs in the original tank. This is when the best bit started as now the female krib has taken on the male krib seeing him as a threat, he is now on his last legs but worst of all i can't move him to any other tank.

so much for so called 'community fish'

after the fry have been raised to a decent size i think i will sell off all of them along with the parents as i've got somewhat more than i bargained for here, and even the books label them as 'community fish'.............

Chris:neutral:

[PAUL HEARN]

Hi Chris,

I'm sorry for not replying before now after you posted pics of the Krib Fry, also I'm sorry to hear things have gone Baps up regarding the whole breeding.:(

Is there no way you can set up a breeding tank for the Kribs?

I'm angry that some Aquarist suppliers still give out the wrong advice regarding the mixing of Fish Species, in my view all Cichlids are unsuitable for breeding in community tanks, but as you say Chris even the books label Kribensis as community Fish.:roll:

Still I wish you the best of luck with the Fry mate.

Paul.;)

[chris]

Hi Paul,

the tank they are in now would be excellent for a breeding tank and i would keep it that way, only now the female has taken a dislike to the male as there are no other fish to defend her fry from. i've heard about this happening in other species before. i really don't think i'll be keeping them after this, and besides i have more important fish to breed (that no-one else does, or at least very few) such as my false zebra plecs

Chris;)

[PAUL HEARN]

Hi Chris,

Now that you have removed the other Fish from the tank containing the Kribs and their Fry, if the female is continuing to bully the male why not put her in with the other Fish and leave the male to finish the job, if the female has no fry to protect in the other tank she might stop the aggression towards the other Fish?

And good luck breeding your Plecs mate.;)

Paul.:D