Blue-eyed quarrel

[Richard Platts]

Question:

I have a pair of blue-eyed Cichlids who have been trying to spawn for about 2 months or so. They had success the first time, though the fry didn't make it. Then the other times they put eggs inside a rock in a wierd place and I think they had trouble either fetilizing or keeping them oxegenated. Not the larger female is chasing the poor male around the tank. I'm concerned she is going to peck him to death.

(typical... wait, no just kidding don't flame me!)

I rearranged the tank a little to shake things up after I noticed this.

Anything else you would do? I have another tank I could set up for a while,though it is not cycled and I need a heater. . .

Help!

Rich

[ScottoMacD]

I bred sajicas years ago. I just started to breed them again recently.

Are you sure that it is the female chasing the male and not vise-versa?

They normally (at least in my tank) seem to breed quite easily. I usually keep two females to one male when breeding them.

A couple of things that I have found that usually work in getting them to spawn.

1- re-arrange the tank (you already did that) but keep the stone that they initially bred on in the same place.
2 - do a decent size water change 50-60%
3 - after the water change wait a few hours for everything to settle down then feed them frozen brine shrimp, or frozen bloodworms (these two seem to work the best.)
4- raise the tank temp to about 80 -82 degrees.


Now I have no idea why this works. (about 90% of the time) but it seems to really stimulate them to start breeding.
This also works with dempsey's (with bloodworms) and rainbow cichlids (brine shrimp)

Go figure?

[Richard Platts]

Well it could be the other way around. The one I figured for the female is bigger. The smaller one seemed to be fetilizing already laid eggs. Though I could have this all wrong.

Thanks for the input!

Rich