Pelvicachromis taeniatus Njanje

[Gordon C. Snelling]

Here is my male all grown up. I got these from Janos last season. He looked even better than this just minutes before I got the camera out.

 

[Gordon C. Snelling]

After several failed spawns, I finally have gotten a good clutch. The earlier batches were all eaten prior to free swimming but these ones made. Interestingly the female did all the care of the the clutch up until free swimming, now it is the males turn. If the female ventures far from the cave he is all over her.

There is no doubt in my mind that these fish are well on the way to developing a mouth brooding scenario. The fry are very geared towards retreating to the males mouth as can be seen in one of the images. They constantly swarmed the male and jockeyed to get in. They reminded me of the some of the images I have seen of flocks of young tilapia retreating in to the mouth of their parents. Those that the male was able to hold were not retained for long in this case though.

 

[Joe Gatchell]

Very nice looking taeniatus, and very interesting observations on the fry behavior.

 

[4=grand]

great pics

love the fish got to get some.im looking to get as many as i can

 

[Melanochromis]

Very good looking fish and great pictures. Thanks!

 

[tjudy]

Cool! I have seen fry hang out in the face of parents, but i have not seen that level of effort to enter a mouth before. In fact, I rarely even see Pelvicachromis species pick up wandering fry and move them closer to the brood like Apistogramma do. When kribs want to congregate their fry they flick their fins a few times and the babies come right in.

 

[Gordon C. Snelling]

Thanks for the comments. This has been a very interesting fish to work with, well when he is not trying to kill something he shouldn't. The effort you see is nothing compared to what was going on, this is just the best picture I could as he and the fry were hanging out at the rear of the tank for these shots. I noticed the fin flicks and how responsive the fry are, far more so than I have seen with other cichlids. Not only the fin flicks but the poor guy has this series of actually body flicks and head shakes as well, some so violent I almost think he is having seizures.

 

[ed seeley]

Interesting that this is one of those translocated populations we were talking about. Has anyone else seen this behaviour in this form? Could this be a response to a new environment or is it just a fluke behaviour pattern?

 

[Nebraska_cichlids]

My Njanje never showed this behavior. As Gordon was saying, my wild-caught Njanje are the parents of what he has. For a while they were spawning like clockwork, but I didn't have any success lately. Perhaps they are getting too old? I should probably try to get a pair out of the few remaining F1s that I still have. Good job, Gordon, please try to keep them going; it is such a nice taeniatus morph!

 

[Ryze_Gr]

What a wonderful behaviour...!!
Your fishes are very beuatiful.
Keep updating about your spawn.

 

[Gordon C. Snelling]

The male is currently the sole care giver for the fry. I was finally able to get the female separated before he killed her. As mentioned earlier up to free swimming mom was the care taker, but once the young ventured from the cave it was all on the male. I am seeing far less effort on the part of the fry to get into dads mouth now that they have been swimming for a few days. He is still pretty aggressive about keeping the young together though and when he wants to gather those that ignore his signals he goes and grabs them.