Cacatuoides CAN be GREAT Fathers

[krustyart]

For those of you who habitually move the Mother and eggs or siphon out the fry or remove the father A. Cacatuoides. You dont have too. Sure one or both will eat the fry the first few times. Mine did the same thing. I got lazy and just left them alone and eventually now both parents guard the eggs and fry until they are a good half inch long. Of course by then the mother will want to lay eggs again but by this time the juviniles can be sold or placed in a non agressive community tank. This natrual rearing behavior is much more satisfying than the isolated rearing tank and powerfeeding combination. The babies seem to grow faster and swim and move around much more when they are with thier parents than when they are isolated. My Male is a Triple Red and the Female is a OrangeFlash/YellowGold. I use a planted tank (10 gal) with one amazon sword, some java moss and wood, a cave carved out of feather rock and a peace lilly growing out of the top of the tank with the roots filling up about half the tank(pollution control). The other fish are 1 otto, a trio of guppys(to provide live guppy fry as supplemental food for the parents, the Apistos ignore them except to eat their fry) and one female A. Agazizii as a target fish (someone for the Parents to take their aggression out on so as not to fight amongst themselves). thats all :!:

 

[Neil]

krustyart,

WELCOME TO THE FORUM

I couldn't agree with you more! I have been saying that for years, but the idea goes against the conventional wisdom. I regularly take the female out and leave the male to deal with the young after they are free-swimming. IME I have less problems that way.

Neil

 

[krustyart]

And they grow up better too!

(thanks for agreeing) I have a few sub-adults that were raised from egg without ANY parents in the tank. they grew slow and now are total " 'fraidy-cats", they live in constant panic and fear and run and hide whenever the otto twitches its tail. The newest babies, still with mom and dad are less than an eight of an inch and seem to have no fear even of the potentially carnivourous guppys that live near the surface because they know that should a guppy even look at them the wrong way they will be nursing missing scales complements of mom and dad Cac'!

 

[cootwarm]

I like to keep both parents with the fry. I think this provides for more interesting behavior to observe. I also think that fish are more apt to be good parents if they were raised by their own parents themselves.

I keep OF cacatuoides, TR cacatuoides, borellii, viejita, and trifascatia this way with no problems. Sometimes for the first couple days the fry are free swimming, the female may be a little rough, but she soon becomes comfortable with the male helping out.

The first time my viejita spawned, the female was too trusting of the male. It wasn't that he bothered the fry, it was just the opposite. Each morning when the mother emerged from the cave with the fry, the male would come along and lead half the fry all over the tank. It was cool seeing mom with her school of little ones at one end of the tank and dad with his school of little ones at the other end.

The problem was that he was too careless with them. He would allow them to spread out too far from the group and he would leave any stragglers behind to end up being eaten by the other occupants in the tank. By morning he lost every fry he had. The next day he did the same thing. He took half of the survivors that had stayed with mom the first time and lead them off and the same thing happened. After about 3 days of this, she got very upset and kept pounding the male but it was too late. No survivors left! :cry:

But that was the first spawning. It was just inexperience. Now he does fine. But he leaves the fry with mom and protects the outer perimeter of the territory. Actually now he has 2 females with spawn. He spends most of his time with one female. The other female cares for her fry by herself. She does allow the male to come by for a visit and he doesn't bother the fry at all.

My male OF cacatuoides is completely passive. I've never seen him aggressive at all. (he behaves like a borellii!) It's just the females that got a little aggressive during courting and while protecting eggs. After the fry were free swimming a couple days everything is perfect. Just one big happy family!

I don't ever see the pair of TR cacatuoides beating on each other or the other occupants in the tank. The cacs keep them away from the fry and they are very willing to keep away anyhow.

Michael

 

[krustyart]

Multiple Sets of Fry?

Well, Here is something new for me. A new set of fry just hatched and the Mom Cac just brought them out of the cave, they are still little red wigglers. The suprize is that the other set of fry she had is still being taken care of. The first set just hovers around the fry and they dont even try to eat them. How many setx of fry can Mom take care of at once ??? :?:

 

[cootwarm]

My borellii did something simular but my situation was a little different. I had 3 females and 1 male spawn in a 30 gallon long. All 3 females spawned the same week and when the fry were 6 to 8 weeks old, 2 of the mothers laid more eggs. Once the second batch was free swimming, the 2 females that spawned a second time gave their new batch priority and neglected the first batch. At this point most of the abandoned fry joined with the family of the 3rd mother, but a few became independant and did their own thing. They were only 1/4" and less at that time. In this tank I also had 4 Beckfordi pencilfish, 2 oto cats and 3 other adult borellii (7 total) and nobody bothered any of the fry ever!

Perhaps with just a pair, the father will give more direct care to the first batch. I noticed that with my viejitas, but then, my viejita male always wanted to care for the youngsters, it's just that mom wouldn't let him.

Once they reach a size they can be moved, you'll probably want to remove the larger fry to their own tank. I've found that if I don't remove the larger fry at some point, the smaller fry stay small longer. But when I remove the larger fry periodicly, the small ones seem to get a little spurt of growth almost immediately afterwards.

Michael