how to breed electric blue?

bamboox

bamboox

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Feb 14, 2005
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i am very new to keeping cichlids, so can anyone tell me what is the reproduction cycle for electric blue? cause once I bought a pair of electric blue, and the female was holding eggs in her mouth, and i had no clue what stage was she in, and i didn't know what to do...

are these the correct stages in electric blue reproduction cycle?

1. female lays some eggs
2. she picks them up and holds them in her mouth
3. a male comes in and fertilizes the eggs while she is holding in her mouth?
4. those eggs hatch in her mouth, and she now holding babies in her mouth
5. after couple of weeks, use something to force out babies from her mouth

and in what stage should i seperate the mother and other fish or the mother from her babies?
 
Once the female is holding all you need to do is wait for her to spit the fry. It is possible to strip the eggs or fry but unless you have someone show you the first time, you are better off letting nature takes its course. You could end up hurting or killing the female.

You can leave the mother in the tank with the other fish but you'll probably lose most if not all of the fry to predation. If you net the mother to put her in another tank there is a chance she'll spit the eggs or fry. I would wait until the eggs have hatched that way if she spits its no big deal. African fry are pretty easy to raise. If she spits eggs then you'll have to incubate them yourself which can be a p.i.t.a.
 
Karnaaj said:
Once the female is holding all you need to do is wait for her to spit the fry. It is possible to strip the eggs or fry but unless you have someone show you the first time, you are better off letting nature takes its course. You could end up hurting or killing the female.

You can leave the mother in the tank with the other fish but you'll probably lose most if not all of the fry to predation. If you net the mother to put her in another tank there is a chance she'll spit the eggs or fry. I would wait until the eggs have hatched that way if she spits its no big deal. African fry are pretty easy to raise. If she spits eggs then you'll have to incubate them yourself which can be a p.i.t.a.
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thanks for clearing my doubt! i wish i knew this earlier, cause last time my female spit all the eggs in the bag while on the way back home, i thought they were not fertilized, and threw them away.... what a waste! *cry
 
Perhaps Diana will pitch in here and give you a good idea of how to incubate Mbuna eggs in case it happens to you again. Its been so long since I last did it I'm sure there are better ways.
 
Always here to help ;)

Yes there are several ways you can 'harvest' the fry. I'll list them in order of "easiest" to "hardest".

1- You can let nature take its course and have the female hold until she spits the fry in the main tank. Most babies will be eaten unless you have lots of little hiding places for them.

2- You can move the female to a separate tank (10-20 gallons is perfect) and let her naturally spit in that tank. Move her at around 2 weeks, that way if she spits in the net the fry will be pretty much fully formed. Once she's spat the babies you can remove her, granted she isnt trying to put them back in her mouth to protect them. Have little hiding places for the fry to help with this.

3- You can strip the female. Its a little tricky, but once you get the hang of it its favored by many keepers. You can either strip the female 'into' a fry tank, or into a little breeder box that floats at the top since the babies will be very small (depending on thier age). Its best to strip at 2 weeks because some females will spit early.

4- You can strip the female pretty much as soon as she breeds and tumble the eggs. This way you dont have to worry about her spitting early, and you can get the babies right away. Also this can be used if she spits her eggs in a net or bucket (like what happend to you before). The eggs need to be tumbled until the fry are free-swimming and thier yolk sacs are about half gone. You can tell when thier ready to come out because they will start swimming around the tube. Here's a link to a great site on how to build your own egg tumbler. Or you can buy one ;). http://www.sydneycichlid.com/diy/diytumbler.html

Hope that helped and good luck on raising your babies!
:)
-Diana
 
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