LA
November 1, 2006. The larger one started laying eggs (a very
good clue that it is a female).
LA
You can see her enlarged breeding tube above with eggs on the slate below.
LA
You can see her egg tube better here. The male is behind her (eating
eggs).
LA
She runs him off. Note the leporinus hiding in the background.
LA
She observes and protects the eggs.
LA
Very small spawn -- probably because of the male's tendency to eat the
eggs.
LA
She's a dedicated parent. He's not much help. We never did see
him fertilize the eggs.
LA
LA
LA
LA
No doubt she's a female. We hope the male fertilized her eggs.
LA
Actually, the male spent most of his time warding off potential intruders.
November 1, 2006. Also in this 55 during the spawning
process: a 10-inch leporinus, a 3, a 4, and a 5-inch dovii, a 2-inch
convict, a six-inch weird-shaped goby, a 10 and a 12-inch polypterus, a
5-inch loiselli cichlid, and four silver dollars. The chocolates
ignored them except when they decided to breed. At which time they
kept the left hand half for themselves (except for the leporinus which was
added yesterday evening). At other times, the female beat on the
smaller male.
LA
LA
LA
As we mentioned earlier, not many eggs -- probably due to the male's
"help."
LA
More typical batch of eggs from
Texas cichlids
of the same size that spawned the same day.
LA
Here the female guards the surrogate stone we gave her and continues to
dig.
Temperature.
By the way, they spawned at 75 F. We'll update you on the eggs later
(if the male fertilized them). ... Within five days they all fungused.
LA
More the size spawn one would expect.
One Month Later. They spawned again -- on my day off.
We still don't know if the male did his job.
LA
Good-sized batch of eggs this time.
LA
So we decided to incubate their eggs artificially.
LA
the female keeps digging (looking for her eggs).
Last (?) Words. The eggs all died and grew a forest of fungus
within four days. The current thinking theory says they are both
females. If their third spawn dies, we'll figure they're both
females for sure. LA
© 2006
LA Productions
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