Breeding Yellow Labs

I am currently doing the same thing with yellow labs and I just recently became successful and pulled four fry from my tank about two weeks ago or so and I also just had a female spit about 30 fry and so I am about to be pretty over crowded. I also have at least two more females that are holding right now.

Just to be clear, you do not need the second 10 gallon tank in order to breed per say, but only to hold the fry and keep them away from their parents and other fish who would eat them. I found that it is very advantagous to leave all the breeding fish in the main tank and once you notice that a female is holding eggs in her mouth, count forward 23 days or so and then move that female into the smaller tank so that she can spit the babies out when they are ready. Of course, right after that, but the mom back in the big tank. This may or may not work for you at first since the female is more apt to spit her fry too early if stressed from being chased and caught by you. Some females also take a couple of practice batches before she will hang on to the eggs long enough to get fry.

I would use a substrate and maybe some dense fake plants for your fry tank. I would probrably get a larger substrate and put just a thin layer of it in the tank. The larger substrate will let the fry hide from her mom in case she spits them out when you are not around and the plants are going to be good cover so it will make the fry feel safe and be less stressed out.

You can USUALLY tell males from females by looking for eggspots on their anal fins. The look just like they sound...like eggs. The male uses them to ensure that the female keeps following him in order to catch the eggs on his tail, thus increasing the amount of sperm that the female collects. This is not a fool proof method though and some females do have eggspots. You will know for sure when a fish's cheeks look like a chipmunk with food it in its mouth. Those will be the females for sure.

My labs are two to three inches as well and I am getting fry from them at a rapid rate all of a sudden. Just keep an eye out for the aggressive male just before and after mating occurs. Also, keep plenty of hiding places in your tank so that the female can stay calm and not get chased by the male, again, making her stressed and increasing the liklihood of her spitting too early.

do any of you have any support to the PWC's inducing breeding behaviour?

thank, and please post some pics...

Im not sure what you are asking for Blackwolf, can you explain in more detail?

Here are some pics of the four fry I was able to get out of my main tank once I realized that two females had spit:





And a short video I took of them since they are hard to get good pictures of:

http://s96.photobucket.com/albums/l... Videos/?action=view&current=YellowLabFry.flv

what i meant was, i had heard that sometimes doing a water change can induce breeding; and i was wondering if you could back this staement up...

I am contemplating breeding yellow labs myself, already have 4 of them now, probably get 2 more soon. As for my question, I am currently in the process of setting up a 20G community tank that will house about 6 tetras and 5-10 cherry fire shrimp. Would this tank be ok you house the fry in util they get to be about and inch and I can trade them to my lfs for store credit?

Thanks!

it is commonly held that raising the TDS in the breeding tank will induce breeding for the yellow labs (and other cichlids). This is usually done by a large water change and then lowering the water level.

It is not necessary. I have been breeding labs for long time now, probably 200 fry given away. I have never done that - however, I do larger than normal water changes to keep clean water.

I used two tanks (now only one), for lab breeding. I use gravel that they can dig out a hole for themselves, so it cant be too large. It is best to keep a ratio of 1M to 2F (or more F). Labs are (at least mine) are good parents and most fry will grow up. I do not move the female once holding - but this is a lab only tank. I have not seen them resort to cannibislism. What mine do is they dig a cave area and spawn in side. So many places for caves, hiding spots the better. They love rockwork (it does reproduce their environment). All of these items also will help the fry hide when released.

Sexing labs is easier looked at the pelvic and anal fin - the males will have mostly black where the females are a lot less black - maybe 60% or way less (mine have about 10% black). Also, the dorsal fin on males has a larger solid black line than females. This is alot more evident when the are of mating age.

Mine started to mate around 9-12 months - when they were about 2.75" to 3.5". Allowing a single dominant male will help you get more fry as all he has to worry about is mating, not fending off other males.

Beware - if you get too successful, you can hurt your females. My situation was M would spawn with 1F. Once the female release, she would spawn again with the male. 25+days with out food is a long time to repeat many times in a row.

Good Luck and let us know how it goes.

Aries