African cichlid fry development

Thought you might find this interesting.

Disclaimer: If you are really anti-hybrid, I suggest you don't read this thread.

I've been having difficulty getting fry from my OB peacock. I've tried a device called an egg tumbler a few times to artifically raise the fry but haven't had much luck. The eggs either got fungus or died due to a flaw in the tumbler design. I've gone through a couple re-designs and finally was able to grow a batch of fry.



First of all, this is the working design of the egg tumbler. The basic idea is the eggs need to be shuffled around and oxygenated or they will die. The air stone pulls water through the tumbler (like how undergravel or sponge filters work) and the water current causes the eggs to gently bounce & rock around in the chamber. The netting above the egg chamber prevents the eggs from being blown out the tube and the chamber below the egg chamber acts as a buffer zone. I keep the tumbler in my fry tank and I had a problem with my older fry attacking the new fry through the netting. So with the extra chamber, they can't get anywhere near the new fry.

This is the mother (OB peacock - she's even holding in this pic)


This is the father (kennyi)


And this is a female kennyi (all females & juvenile males have the same coloration)


I stripped the eggs from the mother after she held for 4 days. I chose to strip her and raise the fry artifically because she has a habit of not holding to term and she hadn't fattened up much since the last time she held so I didn't want her to get too thin (they don't eat when they're holding). Out of 21 eggs, only 5 where fertile (probably because of hybridization/incompatibilites)

So basically, this is the development that would have normally taken place inside the mother's mouth.

This is what the eggs looked 4 days after spawning. Note the head & tail wrapped around the yolk sac.


5 days after spawning. The tails have popped out.


6 days after spawning. The heads have popped out.


7 days after spawning.


9 days after spawning.


11 days after spawning.


14 days after spawning.


18 days after spawning (I've moved them to a standard breeder box).


Today - 21 days after spawning (about the time the mother would have normally released them). It appears as though they're going to end up looking like kennyi.


-Chelle

 

That is quite easily the coolest thing I've ever seen!!! Amazing!! Awsome Job and Good Luck! Why do they still have the huge stomache at 14 days?

 

Wow Chelle, that's really a wonderful post! Very educational as I've always wondered what an egg tumbler was really for! Also, those are by far the best pics of developing fry I've ever seen. Great job and good luck with your new kids!

 

AWESOME

 

Chelle, you're very impressive and amazing!!!

 

That's their egg sac (yolk). Since they're normally in the mother's mouth for the first 3 weeks, they can't eat so they have a large egg sac to provide their nutrition during that time.

-Chelle

 

Cool thanks for tellin me, I've yet to have any experience with any egg layers or mouth breeders are just eggs in general, Again very awsome!

 

That's awesome Chelle! I want cichlids or marine next time for sure!

 

hey can you help me set up something like that i would love to try it i have a 125 gal cichlid tank and i would love breed some of them

 

First off, before trying to artificially raise fry, I recommend giving the mother a chance to hold them on her own. The less interference the better.

That said, the tumbler is really simple to make. I just used a couple sections of intake tubing from an old Whisper filter, some netting (check out the remnants section at a fabric store), a rubber band, an old heater holder, and a small air pump that came with a 1 gallon tank (plus a power saw to cut down the tubing).

Here's how it goes together:


Moving the air stone higher or lower in the tube will affect how much tumbling the eggs do. You don't want them to bounce too much or they'll get bruised, but if they sit on one spot too long, that part of the egg might die or they can get fungus.

-Chelle

 

how do you strip the mother of the eggs ?

 

I hold her gently (but firmly) above a net with her head in the water and use the end of a plastic zip tie to open her mouth so she'll spit the eggs/fry out. You have to be really careful though because it is possible to seriously injure her.

-Chelle

 

how big of a tank did u breed the cichlids? on day 18 how big of a tank were the fry in?

 

aww your so lucky! also with the fry it is easyer for you to tell when the yolk is done compaired to my platy fry. my fry where born in big groups so the yolk was small and you had to have perfict timing for that stuff

 

They can stay in the tumbler up until they're around 3 weeks old since normally during that period they would be crammed in the mother's mouth. I like to keep all my fry in a standard breeder box (approx 3" x 4" x 5" & what they are in in the day 18 pic) for at least a week after the mother releases them. That gives me a chance to make sure they're all eating & swimming good.

Then they go into a 20 gallon grow out tank. Except with these guys, I already have some older fry in the grow out tank so I want the new fry to get a little bigger first so they don't get eaten. Two of them did manage to jump out of the breeder box and into the maint tank yesterday. I was going to try just leaving them, but the older fry started chasing them so I put them back in the box.

With my yellow labs and auratus, one batch of fry is generally more than I can sell so when they're about 3/4" - 1", I cull all but about 10 of each species. With the auratus, I try to cull the males since they can be incredibly aggressive. When they're juveniles, the males & females look alike. So by venting them and culling the males, I decrease the chances of someone accidently getting 2 males that will kill eachother.

Then when the fry are around 1 1/4" - 1 1/2" I sell them.

Just for some size comparisons, here's one of the babies that managed to escape into the main tank. The kennyi/ob fry (between the bricks) is about 1/4" and 1 week old from when the mother would have normally released him. The yellow lab on the left is 10 weeks old and about 1", and the 2 auratus are about 3/4" and 6 weeks old.


And on a sad note, I just found the mother of these fry dead. Last night I realized I hadn't seen her all day. So when I cleaned the tank, I moved the rocks around and found her body between a rock and the back glass. My best guesses are she either got stuck or beat up. But I've never had any major problems with aggression in the past.

So I'll probably end up keeping 2 of her babies.

-Chelle

 

sry bout your fish :cry: . atleast u have her fry to remember her by though

 

That's part of the reason I decided to keep 2 instead of just one.

-Chelle

 

thats odd. who else has had the mother die within a short amount of time after birth. because my mickey mouse platy mother died and the tuxedo platy mother is sick.

 

On another forum, someone's female betta died exactly 1 month after spawning and for no apparent reason.

It's kind of weird.

-Chelle

 

sorry to hear about your fish