1st post... gotta make it count :)

[icepack]

well ive been a lurker on this forum for some time now.. and i thought it was time to post something... what better post than to show the birth of my electric blue cichlid :)

so first off is infant + daddy.......mom is in a rehabilitation tank :( she couldnt take the abuse anymore and got really stressed
http://img453.imageshack.us/img453/4967/15bo1.th.jpg (http://img453.imageshack.us/my.php?image=15bo1.jpg)

second is a much better picture of the infant....
http://img453.imageshack.us/img453/718/27zi.th.jpg (http://img453.imageshack.us/my.php?image=27zi.jpg)

The little guy is about 2 months old and has been living in the same tank as the parents for all of his life. He has a little hide away thats served him all this time.

The funny part about this little one is that i didnt even know i had a breeding pair... they always kept away from eachother... and then, all of a sudden, the female's mouth puffed out as if she smashed into a wall and her face pushed inward, so naturally i thought something bad happen overnight. Then a week later her mouth went back to normal and this little guy was hiding in a small cave. (he was much smaller then) :)

the little cave is at the bottom of that big red lava rock behind him.

edit: bigger pictures... didnt know that image shack didnt link to the bigger ones when you choose to resize them.

[FreddytheFish]

Cool pix! :cool:

[Cylon]

Well this posts counts! At least to me.
Tell me about the parents. You had a blue and a common?
You didn't know the common had blue jeans or did some how 2 electric blues pair off.

I'm very intrested and amazed.

[icepack]

i bought 2 electric blues about a half a year ago. I never expected them to pair off because the male always kept to himself and chased off the female when she got near his "territory". He just chased her away, no real fighting took place. This behavior still happens, except now hes not just protecting his territory but whenever the females come near the infant, the male chases her off.

i guess it turned into a big battle for custody :) thats why the female is in another tank for now...

[Cylon]

very strange. From what I have read. The frys are supost to hatch to weak to swim and die off or be infertale. Maybe that is why you only have 1. I am still amazed unless I have been mislead on what I have read.

[icepack]

sorry i cant explain it any better.
i wasnt prepared for the fry.. i didnt even know what their breeding methods were. I just saw a little one swimming in a crack all of a sudden and he has been thriving ever since.

You may be right....he may be the only one that survived

[Emg]

What a cutie ! Nice job getting such a good pic of him/her !! :clap:

[~*LuvMyKribs*~]

very strange. From what I have read. The frys are supost to hatch to weak to swim and die off or be infertale. Maybe that is why you only have 1. I am still amazed unless I have been mislead on what I have read.

I think you are confused... you are talking about if the fry were hybrids, but thier not, since icepack bought a pair (1 male and 1 female) of the johanii (or maingano, cant really tell them apart- is the female blue or yellow? Most likely if shes blue its a maingano if shes yellow its a johanii).



Hehe, anyways, nice pics! I've only ever had one C. afra fry survive in the tank with the adults.... they gotta be pretty smart to find food and not get eaten!

:)
-Diana

[icepack]

luvmykribs, the female is blue not yellow.

The little guy is very smart and fast. hes been eating flake food just like the parents...
If a big flake (bigger than him) comes by, he would grab a hold of the flake... eat it along the way.. and bring the rest back to his small cave so that he can have it all to himself.

i could sit all day watching the little one explore and interact with the big lava rock behind him. he doesnt go much further than his immediate surroundings... but he does stare at places he would like to go, but is too scared to leave :)

He is also turning into his father... already trying to move the gravel around and he does a good job, if the pieces are small enough :)

[Cylon]

~*LuvMyKribs* I may be confused but even my chat on the phone with (Jeff Rapps) http://www.tangledupincichlids.com/ confermed this. They don't even sell the standard dempsey with the blue jeans commercialy.

Congradulations icepack.
I for one am impressed and have even talked about your success with my wife.
Can you please check out the thread on sexing blue dempseys and give us your opion on the photos in question?

[fish_breeder_05]

the first pic looks like a melanochromis johanni with nice color and i cant see the second clearly

[icepack]

i did some looking around on both species... and it looks to me like i might have both (melanochromis johanni male, and a Maingano female)... the female definitely has stripes like the maingano pics ive found, but the male does not.

my female looks exactly like the one on the left in the first picture on this page http://www.malawicichlidhomepage.com/aquarium/mel_maingano.html

and my juvenile looks alot like the ones in the second pic on this site
http://www.cichlidlovers.com/m_cyan_maingano.htm

[~*LuvMyKribs*~]

~*LuvMyKribs* I may be confused but even my chat on the phone with (Jeff Rapps) http://www.tangledupincichlids.com/ confermed this. They don't even sell the standard dempsey with the blue jeans commercialy.

Congradulations icepack.
I for one am impressed and have even talked about your success with my wife.
Can you please check out the thread on sexing blue dempseys and give us your opion on the photos in question?


Dempsey? What dempsey? These are african cichlids from lake malawi.... :confused:



Anyways, icepack, maybe you could post a good pic of both the male and female? I know johanii and maingano do look similar (im not even good at telling them apart) but with a pic of each I might be able to get a positive ID for you.

If the female is blue, though, she's most likely a maingano or hybrid thereof. The male though, might be either. However if you purchased them together its likely they are the same species.

I did a bit more digging and Im thinking they are both maingano. The proper name for maingano is Melanochromis cyaneorhabdos. Here's a link to both male and female pictures: http://www.malawimayhem.com/profile_show.php?id=309

:)

-Diana

[icepack]

well... ive been a bit reluctant to take pictures of her... if you havent noticed :(

her health isnt getting any better and nothing i do is changing it :( her coat isnt shiney anymore and she isnt swimming straight (her tail is higher up in the water then her body)

But if you take me on my word i can tell you that the pictures from malawimayhem.com depict how the female looks exactly.

heres a better picture of the male...
http://img456.imageshack.us/img456/6186/45zs.th.jpg (http://img456.imageshack.us/my.php?image=45zs.jpg)

the male doesnt look like the Melanochromis cyaneorhabdos

[~*LuvMyKribs*~]

It sounds like something is definately wrong with your female. Is she eating? Does her stomach look big?

I will ask Raf about the IDs and see if he knows what it is. Often when johanii and maingano hybridize the horizontal striping will be broken.... but there are so many species of Melanochromis that look similar its hard to tell.

:)
I'd like to help you with the female though... incase she has bloat or hex or something.

-Diana

[~*LuvMyKribs*~]

Raf mentioned another point which I failed to.... the baby is blue w/ stripes. With johanii all the babies are born yellow, and when the males mature they turn blue. The females and sometimes sub-dominant males will remain yellow.

Your fry looks like its blue, but it has hints of yellow. Was is born yellow? This leads me to believe that these guys are mostly M. maingano. Now, because the striping is different and broken, it suggests that these guys are not pure and at some point possibly have johanii or something else in them. Although, they are beautiful fish, and you should be proud of them :). Its hard to say for sure, but I would suspect they are mainganos, to some degree of purity. Successive generations of captive bred fish can degenerate the quality of the colors (such as the definition of the striping) and not nessecarily mean the fish is hybridized.

But, the tiny bit of yellow on the fry might be an indicator.

HTH
:)
-Diana

[icepack]

YEA!!! you know what, it was born yellow...
i totally disregarded that. I thought that coloring on fry took time to appear


on the other subject... shes trying to eat but most of the time she misses the flakes stops trying. shes not bloated, but she is losing scales on her side :( i might just have to put her down :(

[~*LuvMyKribs*~]

You could try treating her with meds, maybe Metro or something. It sounds like she has an internal problem, coupled with getting her butt kicked by the male. Its worth trying to save her, but sometimes its past the point of return.

Anyways, so I guess that solves it then. You have a maingano female with most likely a johanii or half-johanii male.

:)
-Diana

[Cylon]

~*LuvMyKribs*~,
Sorry, I did not relize there was an electric blue african dichlid.
I mixed it up with an elextric blue dempsey. Now I know why when I ordered mine and went to pick it up at the pet shop it was in the african tank. I told them those are centeral american cichlids.
This makes so much more sence now why they were mixed up as well.
Hope I didn't mix anyone up on this thread

[PinkBloodParrot]

I couldn't see the pic, it said x

[icepack]

sorry for bringing up my old thread but i thought i would share updated pictures, a month later to show you the progress of this little survivor.
pic 1
http://img356.imageshack.us/img356/624/juvupdate8ge.th.jpg (http://img356.imageshack.us/my.php?image=juvupdate8ge.jpg)

pic 2
http://img356.imageshack.us/img356/8746/juvupdate15nd.th.jpg (http://img356.imageshack.us/my.php?image=juvupdate15nd.jpg)

i hope everyone had a nice holiday season and a happy new year.

[Emg]

IcePack....beautiful little fish....glad you brought it back up.

What happened with your female ?

BTW...I LOVE your avatar !! http://www.planetsmilies.com/smilies/happy/happy0188.gif

[~*LuvMyKribs*~]

Cute little guy! He's growing nicely. You can still see the yellow in him eh? ;)


-Diana

[icepack]

@emg: well for 2 1/2 weeks my female acted normally in her rehab tank, except her body was degenerating. she was just as excited when i passed by her tank as all my other fish are. At first it was just her fins, but then her tail went, then her body started to shrink and she had to use her entire body to move around. But she wasnt starving, she ate like any other cichlid ive had, and her stools were just as normal.

I tried to find "Metro" like LuvMyKribs suggested, but i couldnt find it at my LFS's, and i felt that she went through enough, so i decided to put her down. It was a sad day, but i feel i did the right thing.

But with everything that happen, there is an upside. the little one is thriving and im happy that he (yes i think i can say he at this point... it looks like hes forming eggspots ) is able to co-exist with his father in the tank. The father still chases him around from time to time, but not on a constant basis, and im happy that they can live together because i cant get another tank at this point :)
The little one is not as blue as the pictures may show, ill admit to that right now :) Those pictures were taken with a flash and from a good position, and after many takes :) it took me a while to get that shot.
Hes actually a pale yellowish/blue color, but cute nonetheless

thanks for all the support everyone :)

[Lady G]

I just love your fish!!!