Typical spawn size of N. similis?

[Cichlidiot]

Hey all, I was wondering if anyone knew the typical spawn size of N.
similis. I had two wild females have spawns last month. One female shortly
thereafter lost a territorial dispute with a rival male (her mate was so
badly damaged I had to move him to another tank, I'd move her too except
she won't let me catch her, doesn't even dive in a shell for me to use
that trick). I was only able to save 2 fry from that batch (thank god
the rival male was too large to fit fully in the shell, although he did
try his hardest to reach the fry).

I've noticed the other female has 10 fry now that they're big enough to
accurately track and count, and that seemed a bit high to me for a
shellie. Usually in the past I've seen 5-7 fry from a similis spawn, but
I've only had a half dozen or so spawns. Anyone know if this is an
unusually high number or typical for wild similis?

[Cichlidiot]

Cichlidiot > wrote:
> I've noticed the other female has 10 fry now that they're big enough to
> accurately track and count, and that seemed a bit high to me for a
> shellie. Usually in the past I've seen 5-7 fry from a similis spawn, but
> I've only had a half dozen or so spawns. Anyone know if this is an
> unusually high number or typical for wild similis?

Just to follow up to myself, I guess this is typical spawn size for this
female at least. She has a new batch of at least another dozen fry that I
noticed last week, probably more than a dozen but they're hard to count at
that size. The month old fry are helping out with their younger siblings,
which is making the young ones far more adventerous than their older
siblings were at that age, but so far the pair is keeping all other fish
out of their side of the tank. I'm setting up a new tank right now for
most of the remaining unpaired adults who have been relegated to hanging
out at the top of the tank near the breeders net (which holds the
surviving fry from the second spawn in December). I'll probably leave the
one larger one who has a small set of shells staked out between the two
pair for now. I suspect it's a subdominant male (or a very large female).
It doesn't bother the large family of fry with the one pair and it serves
as a distraction for the aggression of the male in the other pair, who
might try to fight with the other pair's male or beat up his mate if not
for this one in the middle serving as dither essentially.

Maybe if I'm lucky some of the remaining adults will pair up in the new
tank. Then I'll have baby similis coming out my ears, heh. I'm actually
quite pleased with the quality of fry the prolific female is producing.
They're growing far more rapidly than other similis fry I've had in the
past (or the ones in the breeders net). They're not sellable size yet
(only a month old after all), but I think they'll get there much sooner
than the others. Fun part will be catching them as several have decided to
live in the rock piles rather than in shells. There's even a couple fry
who have made a home out of a small clump java fern with an algae problem
that's broke away from the rock pile and loosely rooted into the sand. I
think between the java fern and algae, it creates a pretty dense cover
underneath it, which may be why they chose it. Well, that and it's only an
inch away from the female's main shell.

Similis definately aren't exclussive shell-dwellers, so that new tank will
have a rock pile and some java fern clumps in addition to the shellbeds to
let them have plenty to chose from. Anyone who reads this who's thinking
about getting similis should definately keep in mind that some similis
prefer rocks to shells and provide enough hiding spaces in some rock piles
for those similis that chose it. The rock piles also serve as good
territorial lines. In my main similis tank, there's two rock piles about
half a foot from either side of the tank, creating three shell zones (each
side and the middle). The two pairs have taken up the shells between the
rock piles and the sides. The more prolific pair has taken over their rock
pile and a few shells on the other side (particularly a huge conch shell
that is the male's home). The other pair guards the rock pile as well, but
allows the unpaired similis hang out in shells close to their rock pile
(in the middle zone of sand). I suppose this truce might break if they
produce a lot of fry and need room to grow, but it works for now.