Couple of GBR questions

[abcdefghi]

I have what I am 99% certain is a male and female pair of GBR's in my tank. Last night I noticed them doing what appeared to be cleaning a bowl shaped area on some of my driftwood. Now I know that with the pair of angels I have, when they are getting ready to spawn, they will clean an area of a leaf etc, is this something that the rams also do? and so they could well be cleaning the area of wood to spawn on?

Are they also aggressive? I managed to hand feed them for the first time yesterday (only had them 2 weeks) and I then dropped an algae wafer into the tank (they love them). Eventually one of my cory cats heads over, and decides to try and take a bite of the wafer, the male ram literally physically pushes the cory out of the way (bearing in mind here, that its a fully grown peppered cory, probably pushing 2.5" and a ram who is half that size). Just curious, I don't think he could damage the cory even if he tried.

Thanks.

[inkyjenn]

1) yes, the cleaning of an area is typical prespawning behavior for gbrs.

2) the closer they get to spawning, the more aggressive they will be. mine spawned sometime yesterday. this morning, 95% of my fish are in the half of the tank not occupied by the happy parents. anyone that comes close is being pecked at. as a whole, however, gbrs dont seem to be as aggressive as some of the other species of cichlid. but this just may be due to their diminutive size. mine are no longer running away from me when i approach the tank o_O

[abcdefghi]

1) yes, the cleaning of an area is typical prespawning behavior for gbrs.

2) the closer they get to spawning, the more aggressive they will be. mine spawned sometime yesterday. this morning, 95% of my fish are in the half of the tank not occupied by the happy parents. anyone that comes close is being pecked at. as a whole, however, gbrs dont seem to be as aggressive as some of the other species of cichlid. but this just may be due to their diminutive size. mine are no longer running away from me when i approach the tank o_O

Great thanks, I saw the pictures of yours spawning, congrats!! Mine have been extremely brave since day 1, within 48 hours of them going into the tank they were happy to mix it up with the tetra's and angel at feeding time, and are front and center anytime I come into the room. They have nipped my hand during water changes, and are very personable, all within 2 weeks of picking them up.

[inkyjenn]

then you are doing something right :) mine are the balloon type (shortened bodies) and im THRILLED they spawned. if mine hatch, i wil be siphoning the fry into a breeder net to try to raise the fry

[Sploke]

Nice! I've been wanting to try breeding them for a while, I just can't seem to get both a male and a female at the same time for some reason.

[inkyjenn]

the females tend to be overloaded with horomones if they are imported. this means they tend to die shortly after arriving or shortly after being added to your tank. see if you can find some that are domestically bred. i got mine that way and they were used to harder water and not loaded with horomones. ive got 3 females and 1 male. im thinking of grabbing a couple more males now...

[abcdefghi]

Nice! I've been wanting to try breeding them for a while, I just can't seem to get both a male and a female at the same time for some reason.

I think I got lucky with the pair I have, I had been thinking for a while about getting some, went into the LFS looking for something else (can't remember what) and saw they had a bunch of GBR's in the tanks, all looking healthy, some with pink belly, some without, I picked one of each and 2 weeks later am hopefully going to see some spawning.

Not sure how well any eggs will do though, I have no plans (at least not yet) to try breeding them, and my water is fairly hard, so not even sure the eggs will be viable. At this point its just a wait and see, will post pics if anything happens.