nanochromis parilus

[cosmiccow]

Hi,
I got a trio of these last week and have them in a 36" long planted tank. I'm having a hard time finding the second female. Is it possible the male killed her because he paired with the other? I see no visible signs of this and all pameters are fine otherwise. There are no other predators in the tank, just a few Puntius rhomboocellatus and Iriatherina werneri.
Hmm, I'll keep looking!

Thanks
Tony

ps. this is the first time for west africans for me...these are really neat fish!

 

[apistobob]

If the female was killed you would find the body at some point. Since you have not it is likely that the female is hidden. It is possible that she has spawned and is hiding in a cave with eggs. However, the courtship and spawning of these fish is usually a prolonged affair and you would likely have noticed the behavior.

Another possibility is that she has jumped outof the tank. While this is not common with these fish I have had parilus jump before.

If she is gone you should still be in good shape as these fish form pretty strong pair bonds.

Bob

 

[ste12000]

I would say that there is a strong chance two paired off and killed the third fish...In a warm tank a fish carcass can disappear sharpish and not be noticed if there is plenty of cover(as a w.africa tank should have)..
Good luck with your fish, i have a trio that i am growing on, i read a old breeding article(1970) on Parilus(called N.Nudiceps in 1970) by J.Richter about three years ago, since that time they were on my list of fish to keep, i got lucky at a recent auction and bought four juveniles, one didnt make it but the others have matured into one female and two males, they need to mature a bit more before breeding but when ready they will get their own luxury honeymoon suite and hopefully give me some fry..Fingers crossed..Good luck with yours and keep us informed on how they get on..

 

[cosmiccow]

Thanks for the replies!
I'll keep looking but no luck so far. I'm fairly certain the other female is gone, but I'm not going to tear the tank apart to find out. Based on the behaviour of the existing pair, it does not suprise me that they killed the other female. The male is rather aggressive towards the female. I don't think he is trying to kill her, but he does chase her when he can. They are a beatiful pair with interesting traits! I can't wait to see how it goes!

Thanks,
Tony

 

[cosmiccow]

Bite my tongue, I just spied her in a cave. Tricky devils are'nt they!

 

[cosmiccow]

Alright, now that I see the trio has survived I'm curious if having one male and two females is a bad idea. I'm thinking the male is showing less agression towards one female while the other female may be getting harrassed. When this species pairs, is it obvious? I mean if I don't witness any spawning or sharing a cave, how do I know if they paired? Will the lone female meet her demise with certainty? I am new to this species and it is fun learning about them. I don't want to cause any unnecessary deaths if possible.
Thanks for any tips!


Tony

 

[Nebraska_cichlids]

Tony, I kept parilus for a while. Beautiful fish but I also found them to be extremely aggressive! I started with two pairs in two separate tanks. A few weeks later one of the males died and I transferred the remaining female to the tank with the other pair. It was very obvious that the male had a favorite female, and the other female was killed soon after putting the three fish together. The remaining pair produced one spawn. Before hatching, the male killed his mate and that was the end of my attempts at spawning parilus. I gave my last male away.

I'll probably try them again some time in the future. FYI: I kept my pairs in 20G long tanks that were heavily planted with numerous rocks, caves and hiding places. I don't remember the water parameters other than I used a mix of 1/3 of the very hard Nebraska water plus 2/3 of distilled water.

Janos

 

[apistobob]

Alright, now that I see the trio has survived I'm curious if having one male and two females is a bad idea. I'm thinking the male is showing less agression towards one female while the other female may be getting harrassed. When this species pairs, is it obvious? I mean if I don't witness any spawning or sharing a cave, how do I know if they paired? Will the lone female meet her demise with certainty? I am new to this species and it is fun learning about them. I don't want to cause any unnecessary deaths if possible.
Thanks for any tips!


Tony

This is a tough question. You are right that the pair will gang up on the lone female. However, they are probably already doing this which is why she is hiding in a cave. I don't think you can ever expect them to become a compatible trio. Nanochromis tend to form strong pair bonds and not harems.

However, the formation and maintenance of a pair bond is not a given between two fish and it is possible that the presence of the second female will keep the male from turning on the primary female. As has already been noted, this is an agressive species and I have seen males chase and harass females that are not ready to spawn. In extreem cases the male kills the female. The presence of the extra female gives a degree of protection to the main female. In realitiy, the extra female becomes a "super dither".

I guess that I would keep the second female so long as she is able to escape serious harm by hiding or fleeing. If she is subject to constant attack I would remove her but watch carefully to make sure the male doesn't turn his agtresssion to the primary female.

Bob

 

[cosmiccow]

Well I seperated the lone female from the pair. I say pair but I'm not familar enough with the species yet to accurately determine if they have paired. It was obvious she was the dominant female and the other female was getting harassed more, but since I moved the lone female out, the female and male that are together seem to pay little attention to each other. I will keep an eye on them and watch for spawning or aggression.
Regarding the female that I pulled out, I put her in an established 20 gallon long with a couple of bolivian rams and SAE's. She is exhibiting a bit of dominance in the tank, but nothing too serious. Is it a bad idea to keep her without any species mates? I know some fish do not do well being solo. The LFS has more males and females, so I can get her a friend, or I can bring her back. I can't imagine spawing rams and spawning parilus in the same tank would work, or can it?

 

[cosmiccow]

Well things are progressing with these guys for sure! I put the lone female back in with the other male and female. She was dominating the rams and some new cory's (C. schultzii gold shoulder) too much for my liking. This is my transition tank, I usually try new species in this tank.

So this evening I was watching the trio during feeding, and female that I moved back was "coloring up" and her belly is very pronounced and colorful. She is trying to attract the male with a twisty curvy dance showing her vent. The female is definetly trying to get his attention. I also observed the male kind of nipping at her underside. I don't think it's aggression, at least I hope not.

Very interesting behaviour! I hope this leads to a spawn!
Of course the male also roams the bottom a lot and chases the females when he finds them. The females are pretty good at evading him though. The male also responds to me by following my finger along the bottom. Very intelligent much like my African cichlids.

As far as the other tank mates (barbs and rainbows), they occupy the mid to upper water column and the parilus stay on the bottom. Sometimes when the barbs forage at the bottom, they do get chased away by the male. No harm - no foul.
And I mean bottom, parilus love to hug the ground. I seldom see the male swim more then an inch or two above the bottom. The females, I occasionally see them mid-level hiding in tall rock formations.

So far so good! I could not be more pleased with this tank, sometimes the challenging stuff can be the most fun. This is obviously going to lead me to start some west african tanks

T

 

[jmtrops]

I spawned several different pairs at different times. I had them in both 30" and 36" long tanks. Each time they spawned I had to pull the male to keep him from killing the female then I would put him back in with her a few weeks after I pulled the fry. I never tried having dither fish in there. A 48" long tank would help too.

Jim