"Amateur Cichlids" wrote in message
m...

"Yoda4peace" wrote in message
ups.com...
I guess my first question is, does anyone know how labs breed and is my
scenario consistent with that? And second, could they be creating just
one baby at a time or am I missing something?

Thanks so much for your help!

Peter


Peter,
Yellow Labids breed in typical Mbuna fashion. The female will harass
the female until she's ready to breed with him. Then when both parties are
ready, the male shakes and shimmies with his side towards the female. The
male and female form a small circle with the males head towards the
females tail and vice versa. The female will lay an egg, then mouth the
male's anal fin area which causes him to discharge his milt, fertilizing
the egg which he's circling over at that point. The female picks the egg
up in her mouth and lays another. The process continues until she's laid
and picked up all the fertilized eggs. There are some variations in the
process with different mouthbrooders, where the female will pick up the
egg first and then the egg is fertilized while in her mouth.
For Labids, it's typically about three weeks to a month before the
female releases the fry into the tank from her mouth. She does not eat
during this period, or only eats very little. This is the distended jaw
you see. Typical broods for young labids range in the 4 to 13 range with
larger fish producing more fry. Labids have small mouths and brood sizes
are typcially small.
Tim



I suspect your probably missing most of the fry... 4 at a time seems to be
unusally small ( unless the female is small ). When I had my Lab's the
females were dropping 15 to 30 at a time.. The first broods were about 15..
Soon your going to have more Yellows than you know what to do with.. Oddly
enough, my Ahli Blues are the same way now and the OB peacocks are getting
to breed the same way too..

Regards...