Breeding Kribs

[PumaWard]

Hello,

I have 3 (1 female, 2 male) kribs in my 38 gallon and I have quite a few pots and plants. The female krib is ready to breed ( magenta belly outline in dark purple and she displays in a desperate attempt to get the stonger male's attenion), but neither of the male's pay any attention to her.

The only reason I can think that there is a problem is from my Apistogramma staecki, but he doesn't bother them all that much. What to do?

The are in my 38g, only other bottom dwellers are 2 cories and the apisto. Do any of you have any idea what I should do to help out?

[Catlid]

I believe its the male with the purple belly?

[PumaWard]

They both are supposed have a purple belly when in breeding mode. Outside of breeding, the female is the only one.

[Grandmastr]

females are like half inch smaller, dont have a circle thing on the edge of their back tail and have a really deep red belly

males- are bigger, longer back fins, not as colorful as the female, and more aggressive

i have a few males in my tank and sometimes they have like brawl fights, they go head to head to each other and ram each other, good stuff to watch

[Dwarfnut]

I'm wondering myself!!

I bought a group of 5 several months ago when they were about 1 1.2" long and put them in one of my tanks. After several months, they were all about 2" or bigger and I noticed the largest male and the largest female had sort of paired off and were really aggressive towards all the others. I then moved the others into another tank basically leaving the two alone in the tank. That was over a month ago and they still have not done anything!! I have tried lots of different changes to water parama like temp, ph, hardness with no success. I added a couple of cherry barbs for dithers about 2 weeks ago and now they just all swim around together! Anyone got any tips or advise??

Thanks,
Bill C.

[Grandmastr]

i have hte same problem hae like 3 pair'd off ones in my 55 wit like 7 that aren't paired up.


when i first got the pair, it was just them 2,and bred within a month of buyin them

i think they are takin too much time protecting their terrirtory from the other kribs that they wont breed .

im thinkin about sellin them all except for one pair

(all the kribs i have are the offspring of the first and only pair i bought)

[DIYMatt]

Pumaward- IME, the other tankmates only become an issue after the fish pair up. Try getting another female or two, I think competion/choice is a motivating factor in these fish. Also, keeping them very well fed with a variety of meaty foods seems to help, live food is even better. Also, I have lots of plants in my tanks where they have spawned.

Right now,I have two somewhat juvenile pairs with broods in a very established 75 gallon plant tank AT THE SAME TIME as we speak, and another juvenile pair in another tank that spawned in the 75 3 weeks ago. But, in that same tank for about 2 years I used to have a pair of older kribs and a pair of Pelvicachromis Taeniatus who never succesfully hatched any fry. They would dig out the caves, color up do the mating dance and chill in the cave for a couple days but nothing. All I can say is they are goofy little fish that never seem to spawn when I wanted them to. But, I have a theory about my new kribs. Heres the story and it is long, sorry.

About 8 weeks ago, I bought 6(3m/3f) of what were sold to me as juvenile "new blood F1 Kribs". Supposedly offspring of recently wild caught specimens. I had just lost my male Taeniatus. So, I gave the female to friend who raises cichlids and sold the Kribs to an LFS and put all six in the tank. They just kinda hung out for a couple of weeks and I really fed them well over that time. Then, I noticed some chasing and the females kind of trying to entice the males. For a while it looked like one male was going to keep two females and two caves. Then, I came home one day to a female not coming out of the cave at all and the next dat she had a small brood with her. Two of the other Kribs seemed to have paired off on the other side of the tank and were defending their territory and constantly testing the boundaries of the parent pairs territory. The other two Kribs were relegated to the back of the tank. So, I just left the tank be to see what would happen and it was really cool to watch the kribs parent raise in that environment. But, alas every morning there were a few less fry. I left it alone still and waited until the parents started to leave the remaining fry(now four:() alone. Then I moved that pair into a 30 planted of their own, with the same basic water parameters, and so far nothing resembling spawning in almost a month. I just wanted a spawning pair. Since then, the odd pair out have paired up and took over the now vacant pot. Then there was more territorial sparring. Less than a week went by and I noticed the pairs spending a lot of time in the caves and about 4 days ago, presto two broods at the same time! This is awesome. The two pairs often come to the middle of the tank and sqaure off at he territory lines. I know I must be the luckiest fishkeeper to get three pairs out of six fish.

So, my theory is that some competion or some competing hormones seem to motivate these guys to spawn. I know that some people have reported this in respect to Angels. I just wanted to throw that out in case someone has had similar experiences.

It always seems to be the male who is reluctant to spawn, even when the female does beautiful dances and turms ten shades of purple to entice the male. I only wish more human females were more like the kribs. Maybe I am just not going to the right places:)

Sorry, none of this will help the people with groups in their tanks.
What are your water paramaters? I will test mine tonight to make sure and post later what theyr are.

[~*LuvMyKribs*~]

I love my kribs! :D
I have a pair in my 20 gallon community tank that are a little baby-making factory. They just laid eggs about 5 days ago, the eggs have fallen, but i don't see any little babies yet. They laid them on an anubias leaf for some reason instead of in the driftwood cave i have for them. Very weird. anywhoo, this is the fourth batch. i havn't been successful in raising the fry past three weeks. Its probebly because of the other fish in the tank. however, my tank is really densely planted so i would think they would have enough hiding places.

My ph is 7.0, and the water hardness last time i checked was medium i think. Kribs are river fish that like fresh water. The temp is a constant 75-76 F. Ph is said to have a determining factor in the sex of the offspring... but you need to get yours to mate first, right!?
hehe

I only started with the pair when they were babies and by chance i ended up with a male and female and as soon as they matured they paired up and began courting each other. This took several months after the female began to get her bright belly.

In my experience, it takes a good three to four weeks after her last batch for the female to get full of eggs and spawn again.
She 'dances' in front of the male and sometimes he will do it back, and when he does it usually means babies are coming soon. They will get protective of an area... and that means they are getting ready for or already have eggs.

In your case, i would get rid of the male that she isn't interested in. This will just complicate matters i think. or if you wanted to i would add another female, just to even things out.

Anyways good luck, these are awesome fish and wonderful to have to let you know that your tank is doing well. :)

[Raithan Ellis]

Originally posted by PumaWard
They both are supposed have a purple belly when in breeding mode. Outside of breeding, the female is the only one.

Dependant on their surroundings, if they feel quite comfortable even the male will show a vibrant belly all of the time.

http://www.ourfishsite.com/pics/pics_dan/

Galleries 2 & 3 show my kribs in a 10g with over 50 fry. It's the same tank shown in other photos with the entire surface covered in duckweed. It's all about their surroundings. The male is that bright all of the time, even when the lights just kick on in the morning.

Cheers,
Raithan O. Ellis

[PumaWard]

Well, here's an update of the situation,

In a turn of events, the weaker may suddenly turned, paired with the female and beat up the once stronger male... which is now dead. They both display to each other, but haven't chosen a pot yet. That male now has a pinkish belly and my female's belly has become even darker purple, I assume that it has something to do with them getting closer to breeding? Maybe, lol.

[DIYMatt]

Agreed, all three of my males currently show a reddish purple belly. But, the color fades and gets darker depending on mood, as does the horizontal stripe on the side of the fish. They get really dark when they square off in the middle of the tank with another male.

But, mine have never even come close to even nipping a fin. I'm sorry you lost one.

[~*LuvMyKribs*~]

Sounds like your pretty close to having some babies! :D

And yeah, my male's belly looks like the one on my pic
<-------------------------------

It's purple... but not as purple as the female's. Sometimes his gets close though.

yay!:cool:

[DIYMatt]

How long do you let the parents raise the fry?

I left the fry last time and all but four got eaten ( I assume). In my 75 there a lot of other fish, a M&F Apisto Cac., 4 Preacox Rainbows, 2 F threadfin rainbows, 15 Caridinals, 2 dwarf puffers, 2 ghost glass cats, A bushy nose, Ottos (5?), and Amano Shrimp. This time I removed the fry to a 10g 2 days ago. The fry are doing great, I lost count at about 100 from both broods. The parents still seem quite weirded out and are pretty much chasing everything. Even more so than when they had eggs. Just wondering if anyone had any ideas what is a good length of time to let them parent raise.?

BTW- any one have good digital camera I can borrow?

[~*LuvMyKribs*~]

I would not remove the babies away from them too fast, or else you might get the parents attacking each other because they 'blame' one another for the fry loss.
I read somewhere that if you want to remove the fry, remove half, wait a while (days maybe), and remove some more. You should always leave some babies with the parents so they dont get upset.

[Raithan Ellis]

Originally posted by DIYMatt
How long do you let the parents raise the fry?

DIYMatt - I let them go as long as they want since it's not one of the species which I intentionally breed. They shared the 10g with a SAE and would constantly harass it, however it takes aggression away from the female picking on the male after the fry are around.

I find that nature's eye (the fish's eye) does a better job of culling poor genetics from the pool than I can from growing them out and deciding what ones look good to me. The ones they allow to survive are the cream of the crop and prove to be the best in growth and lack of deformity of any kind.

The most recent brood started in the 70's and within 6 weeks was down to 10 fry after they were done with the culls, at which that number remains to this day. Only very healthy specimins were left and the parents raised another batch while the last ones stayed in the tank with them still allowed to go about their business.

With angelfish, I've seen parent's raise subsuquent batches of fry twice, allowing them to co-exist without a problem. Amazingly after that, the following spawns were allowed to be eaten by the larger growing fry.

However, if you just wish to raise the maxium amount of fry possible, that would have to be done manually, by separating them from the parents after a few days. It all depends on the temperment of the parents as some will eat the fry shortly after they hatch.

I almost always leave about 25% of the fry behind when removing them from the parents at a young age without any problems. However, when I go for quantity over quality, I remove them while they are still eggs and leave the same percentage behind for the parents to tend to on their own.

Hope that helps.

Cheers,
Raithan O. Ellis