African cichlids spawning?

Question

b4 I start, let me tell you this is not my tank, it is my dads. He has 8 african cichlids, smallest 3 inches and larges 5 in a 48 gallon tank with 4 clown loaches, that are about 2 1/2 inches. I do not know the types of cichlids other than they are lake malwai(Sry If i spelled wrong!) Don't worry, they plan to upgrade to a 150 soon. Well, 2 of them(1 is rainbow with black stripes on his side, he looks like this- http://badmanstropicalfish.com/africancichlid.com/malawi/DayglowM600D.jpg

Only he has black stripes on his side when he is in full color, i am assuming the one in the pic is a baby? The one I am talking about is about 4 inches)

And the other one is a lightish purple with orange head and orange running down the budy, kinda like this- http://badmanstropicalfish.com/africancichlid.com/malawi/DayglowM600D.jpg

Only his head is much more orange. The rainbow one keeps running up to the other one wiht his mouth wide open putting it close to the other ones. He does this for a while then swims off, the other one follows him, then the orange head one swims around the rainbow one and shimmies up close to him. Could this be courtshib behavior? Or males fighting over territory? I do not know anything about african cichlid breeding other than it has been done in a community(African cichlid community) aquarium and they are mouth brooders. So what do you think it is?

Answer 1

The tail shimmy sounds VERY much like a spawning act.  I have caught a few of mine spawning, and you can use these to compare to what you saw.  There is another thing you can do as well.  The female, if you know which one is the female, will start to show a bulge in her mouth, and if she gets close enough to the tank and you look in, you can probably see eggs in her mouth too.  The next time you feed the fish, watch the suspected female VERY closely.  A mouth brooding female will not eat food while she has a brood in her mouth.  That's a clear sign there was a spawning.  Here's what a spawning looking like.

http://s200.photobucket.com/albums/aa25/...

http://s200.photobucket.com/albums/aa25/...

http://s200.photobucket.com/albums/aa25/...

Different species but look at the shimmy aspect.  The female chases the tail and picks up her eggs.

http://s200.photobucket.com/albums/aa25/...

Answer 2

Many people start off keeping cichlids in their aquarium because of their beauty. With the variety of colors and shapes, it's about as close to a saltwater fish tank that you can get, without the salt!

But before long, most people become interested in breding cichlids, rather than just having them. Quite often this is due to the cichlids breeding without any intervention on the aquarist's part, who thereafter becomes interested in keeping the next batch of fry.

By and large, the majority of African cichlids are mouthbrooders. This means that the eggs are actually brooded in one of the parents' mouth - typically the female cichlid's mouth. Other types of cichlids (shelldwellers for example) will be considered in other articles. But how do you get your cichlids to breed? How can you protect the female, and ensure that the eggs hatch successfully? And then how do you protect the young from hungry predators?

The first step in breeding cichlids is to obtain fish that will breed. While this may seem obvious, it's not as simple as obtaining a male and female of the same species of tropical fish. With African cichlids, it's much better to obtain a harem, quite often referred to as a breeding colony. If you only have a pair, the male may be too aggressive towards the one available female, resulting in stress and potential death.

When you have your breeding colony, you'll want to give them a good environment. Have plenty of caves, rocks, shelves and crevices that the cichlids can choose as their territory and breeding ground. Don't bother with aquarium plants, they'll only be removed by the cichlids!

To get your African cichlids in breeding condition, you need to feed them well. I've always found spirulina flakes to be excellent quality food, as well as the occasional earthworm.

When the fish are ready to breed, you'll notice the male chase the female and do a mating dance, which consists of shimmying in front of the female. The female will drop eggs, and then proceed to pick them up in her mouth. The male will fertilize them. It is theorized that this is where the 'egg spots' come into play. The egg spots are the small round yellowish spots on the male's anal fin. Many feel that when the male shimmies, these look like eggs that the female hasn't yet collected. She attempts to, and the eggs that are in her mouth are able to be fertilized by the male.

The process will be repeated a number of times, until the female loses interest (just like people!). If the eggs weren't properly fertilized, they will be disposed of. If they're fertilized, they will be kept until the eggs are hatched and the yolk sacks have disappeared. This can take from three to five weeks.

If you want to keep the baby cichlids, I strongly suggest that you remove the female to a comfortable tank of her own. This can be a smaller tank, with some rockwork for her to hide in. You don't need to feed her, although when the eggs hatch (you'll see the wigglers in her mouth) you may want to toss in a very small amount of flake food. She may pick at it for the sake of the fry. There will be a follow-up article explaining how to strip the female cichlid, a process necessary if she won't release the eggs or if she eats them.

To feed the babies, you can crush up some flake food into a fine powder. Take a little, mix it with water. Then suck it into a straw of piece of aquarium tubing. Then insert it into the water near the swimming cichlid fry, and release it for them to eat.

Allow the female cichlid to feed back to health before putting her back in the tank. Also, try to keep the babies with cichlids of the same size, lest they become food