How are they doing it?! :-)

Hello!

I am new to this group and very glad to have found it. I've had a
wonderful experience with my first African cichlids - I have a 44 gal
pentagon tank established about a year ago and a Malawi setup with a
large electric blue, a medium aulocanthus?, a synodatus catfish
(Tanganyika), and a brood of yellow labiochromis. Everybody seems to
get along well with each other, which I know is not always the case.

I've had tropical freshwater fish before but have never had them breed.
I have a pair of yellow labs, however, that are breeding like bunnies!
These two have produced four babies at four different times, and I
can't quite figure out how they are doing it!

I see the male dig out this cave by removing the gravel from around and
underneath his favorite rock (his turf). And I see the female lower
jaw sort of expand into a pouch, but I've never seen any eggs. I'll
just notice, quite by chance a little later, that there is a little
baby yellow lab swimming around! :-)

None of the other fish in the tank have acted aggressively toward the
babies and now the oldest one is about half grown. The mating pair
seem (to me) to be having just one offspring at a time. But everyone I
have talked to about has said the other fish are just eating the
others. But I just don't see this happening. The baby fish is
definitely small when I first see it, but it is not teeny teeny.

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

"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

"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...