Pel. signatus spawn... finally!

[tjudy]

There are eggs in the cave! We will see if they make it. The spawn is not very large. There are about 40 eggs total. The female is about 3" and the male is 4". The eggs are large for Pelvicachromis... at least 1.5 mm in length and 1 mm in width. Water conditions are 25 mS, pH 6.5, 27 C and no carbonates. I removed all other cichlids other than the pair from the tank two weeks ago. They have shown breeding behavior ever since (and a bit before), but there were no eggs as of last Thursday and there are today.

 

[JWalker]

woo hoo grats

 

[Neil]

Hey, congrats, Ted!

With as mean as those fish are supposed to be, I found them to be reasonably mellow towards one another and very good parents. Awhile back, when I bred them (they were P. sp. Guinea, of course), they spawned in 5pH and very low hardness. I got about the same amount of fry from about the same sized parents. My gender ratio heavily favored females. I will be curious to see what they do at your water parms. Fingers crossed on a hatch!

Neil

 

[dhm325]

Congratulations. Look out for post spawning battles between the parents. I have lost the male to wounds (to the head area between the eyes) inflicted by the female each of the three times I have gotten my P. Signatus to spawn. The females also had wounds but they were on the sides. The fights seemed to occur just after spawning when the male tried to participate in the care/protection of the eggs. However, one male had new (and ultimately fatal) wounds to the head about a week after the fry were free swimming.
I tried using both dither and target fish but there did not seem to be a significant reduction in aggression.

 

[tjudy]

:roll:

I always post too soon... eggs were gone this morning. THe female is a bit roughed up. Maybe the next round will be better.

I am patiently waiting for the P. humilis 'dinkaya' to spawn. The female is very ripe adn has had an extended tube twice this week... no eggs yet though.