unidentified female holding eggs in mouth.....

It will help to know what kind of fish it is. I've found a lot of cichlids will feed thier fry flake food, by chewing it up and spitting it out. You may want to just let nature run its course. If you are concerned, you can go buy "liquifry" food for egg layers. Feed as the directions, (I think only a drop or two twice a day if memory serves). Most cichlids are good parrents, but it may take a few tries to get it right. If you are concerned about loosing the first batch or two of fry, you can take the fry out, but the parrents will never learn. Parenthood is one of the many attractive qualities of these fish, so IMO it's better to let them figure it out.

What are the other tankmates, and did you ever figure out what kind of cichlid it is?

Pretty fish. But Im no ID expert. Did lovemykribs, AKA diana look at them? Shes pretty good at IDs. I'm going to assume they are different fish, and if they do in fact breed you will have hybrids. If this is the case, PLEASE do not sell them to a fish store. Keep some for yourself if you want them, but hybrids will polute a pure genepool and that is a very bad thing

Well to create a "pure" strain, you need another female, same species as the male. I will state again that I am not well versed in IDing these fish ( mabey the folks at www.malawimahem.com could help?) Some cichlids the male looks quite different than the female, so they might be the same species. If they are different species, in essence, you have a mule. A horse bred with a donkey so to speak. Only problem is, these hybred fish are firtile, unlike a mule. They can be re-breed. If this is the case, you might have some that look very much like one or the other. If you sold those to a petstore, someone might purchase it thinking its a pure strain, breed it, and tiny genetic differences will polute the gene pool. There is no problem with breeding hybrids, as long as you don't sell them, give them away, etc. Verifying the types of fish you have will be an inportant factor here.

Ive tried to ID the female but many females of the genus look simliar, and it might be quite hard to get a positive ID. Raf couldnt even say for sure... other than its a Protomelas genus. I suggest posting these pictures over at Malawi Mayhem and see if anyone over there has some input...

As far as hybrids go its a touchy issue. Some people will kill hybrids and others will keep them because 'they are not any less of a fish'. Im somewhere in between on the issue....
But i highly reccommend you try to find a female for your electric blue, or if you can ID your female try and find her a male.
Dont try to breed the fry to the male to try to 'breed out' certian traits.... lots of people do that but that just pollutes the gene pool with hybrids like those 'yellow yellow' labs that are really crosses with red zebras.

With these fry I suggest you let nature take its course. Let the female spit the fry in the tank and they can fend for themselves. If some live, then you will have mutant little fish , but likely they will be eaten naturally, just like in the wild. By the time they are spat by the mother they should be able to find food themselves. Because they are hybrids i dont suggest going out of your way to feed them, but for future reference finely crushed flake and baby brine shrimp are great fry foods.


-Diana

PS- I just looked at your 'electric blue'... it definately is not a true one. Likely a hybrid. What did you buy it as?

The male is also a Protomelas. So the babies are not a hybrid. The parents may be of different color morphs which is OK.

neither of your fish are 'electric blue' cichlids. the male may be Haplochromis similis or other "Protomelas" species and i suspect so is your female.