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Hey Alan, they are called Betta simorum.

Thats good to hear. I have put one of the females who is turning quite yellow into her own breeding tank and condiitioning her on blood worms and white worms. Out of my group of 10, I think there are only 2 females.. :-?. They tend to be the smaller than the others. What am I gonna do with all these males.. ?

Interesting idea Antwan - but I have to wait for them to spawn first. I can understand giving the female Nannacara a bunch of free swimming apisto fry and she might take them in.. but how would you get the female to recognise a bunch of apisto eggs? I guess firstly, you would have to make sure the nannacara is in the middle of a spawn and somehow add the apisto eggs to her bunch?

Thanks Amazonian. That is good to hear - The female is constantly tending her new nest site and occasionally patrols the tank. Is always good to see a fish demonstrate strong parenting skills. Thats why I have taken a liking to keeping cichlids - especially the smaller ones like the dwarfs and the medium sized firemouths. I can sit there for ages and watch the female lead her brood of young around the tank.

The female has spawned. I tried to take some pics but the tank is not well lit.. excuse the bad quality and yes, the glass needs a bit of a clean. She chose to use the hole in the brick as her nesting site. Here she is patrolling her brick.. I came home this afternoon to find that the eggs were no longer in the brick and she was patrolling the top of the driftwood in the pic below. I think the eggs must have hatched and she has moved the wrigglers to a hole in the top of the driftwood behind the java moss. Fingers crossed there will be free swimming fry in the next few days..

hey, good job on the fry! Did you get your original Inka50s from NZ discus?

Good stuff Penguinleo - good luck with your pair. Funnily enough, I came home this afternoon to find the male cowering in the corner and the female taking up residence inside a hole in a brick. The female has gone very dark - especially around the head and has checkerboard markings along her flanks and her back. She is very aggressive towards all the other fish and i have removed them for their own safety. I think there is a group of eggs in the brick - but will confirm when I try and take some pics tomorrow... this is exciting :bounce:

They had 3 pairs when I was there and I picked out what I thought were the best male and female. Jansens silverdale have a bunch as well - but they all seem to be a lot younger and/or mainly females. They initially had them labelled as 'Panduro' til I pointed it out.. :-?

The reason why I think they have been imported to NZ before is because when I did a search for them on this site, I found a page indicating that there were ppl breeding them up to 2002. But yeah, it would be cool if I can get this pair to breed.. it looks promising as the female is already quite fat..

hey, thanks antwan. I saw your post on the apistogramma site about the pair of panduro you got. I wanted to get some of them as well - but they all look like females to me. Good luck with the pair that you've got.

I saw a bunch of these at the pet shop last week and just couldn't resist. They look so awesome and make a nice addition to my dwarf cichlid collection. This is the first time I've seen them - but I think they have been imported before. Here are some pics of the pair I bought. They look more green than golden. The male: The female:

thats awesome fishboi!! Good luck with raising all of them dude!!

An update on the krib fry - they are now 24 days old and there are about 25 of them. It seems that their only goal in life so far is to eat eat and eat! They swim around the tank looking for things to eat under the guidance of mum and dad... Enjoy the pics!

Nice pics there! I've never seen Endlers before, but they look very much like guppies.. How much did they cost?

They should be ok. I have a few females who are not breeding and every now then I see them swell up with eggs - but after a time, I think they absorb them. Either that or they release them anyway and end up eating them.

Thanks Jim. I don't think he hid them in his mouth cos both of them were eating right up til I found the little ones. From what I've read so far, firemouths are excellent parents - And my male so far is doing a good job - herding the fry around the tank. It took me a while to finally get the female out - and even after all that disturbance in the tank, the male still appears to be calm and composed with his little ones. But I'll definitely keep an eye on their numbers!

haha thanks! The krib babies are growing up fast - i think there are around 25 or so. Will have to take a pic of them later to update the other thread on them. At the moment, I have: Kribensis fry Firemouth fry Panda fry GBA fry So yeah, you could say that I am swimming in babies at the moment..

as long as he is still eating and acting normal, I wouldn't worry too much. It'd be nice if you could post a before and after pic of him As for the loss in colour - your fighter might have what is called the "marble" gene. I think it is a "jumping gene" that can move around to different parts of the chromosome - changing the genetics of the fighter which I guess is expressed in their skin pigment. Heres a useful link to an article for more details.

Thanks guys.. I'd be quite happy if I manage to raise half of them... Yes it was indeed! It was a very cool surprise indeed when I went to feed them and saw the cloud of fry! I agree!! They are not very large at all and I believe this is their first spawn as well. I picked them out of a tank full of juveniles because I saw that they were defending a piece of rock together. I fed the female lots of white worms - I think this is a very good conditioning food for female fish before they spawn. She is hiding all the time so unfortunately I cannot get a clear pic of her. I might have to move her if she keeps hiding as she doesn't come out to eat. Maybe I'll take a pic after she is moved. I have to admit, I had a bit of a problem at the beginning when I put the pair in the 2 foot breeding tank. The male kept chasing and harassing the female. I provided lots of hiding places using flower plots, bricks, plants and even hanging in some breeding mops that I had lying around - just to break the line of sight. In the end, I had to put in a divider that went down to about 3cm from the bottom - so that the fish can still get to each other if they swim to the bottom. This worked for some reason as the male would chase the female to the other side of the divider and then he would come back to his side. When he sees her again, he'll charge at her, but hit the divider most of the time and after a while he stopped the charging - she then gained some confidence and started eating a lot and soon enough they started doing the shimmying thing that cichlids do. I raised the divider a bit higher to increase their access and they started swimming around together. It was a week later that I found the eggs on the side of a brick.

I have a pair of firemouths in a 2 foot breeding setup and have had them for just over a month now. I have been conditioning them on cichlid pellets, bloodworms and white worms. Last thursday, the female laid a lot of eggs on the side of the brick - they were both guarding it aggressively. I was away snowboarding for the weekend and came back to find the eggs gone - there was nothing left on the brick and the pair weren't guarding any area of the tank in particular. Since it was their first spawn, I figured they probably ate the eggs and so started to condition them again. I came home this evening to find the male surrounded by a cloud of little firemouth fry !!:bounce: :bounce: There are heaps of them and they are all free swimming. The pair must've hidden the eggs somewhere in the tank the whole time!! It appears that it is the male who has taken sole possession of guarding the fry - the female is nowhere to be seen. I finally found her hiding in the corner under the plants and the male wouldn't let her near the fry. Maybe she is ready to lay again and want to eat the fry. I'll have to remove her if the male continues to treat her like an outcast. I don't have any brine shrimp on hand and the microworm culture has taken a bit of a dive at the moment, so I added some powdered cichlid pellets. Fingers crossed I can harvest some microworms tomorrow. I had to take the pics using flash as the tank is not very well lit - excuse the reflections in some of the photos. Here are the pics of the male and his bunch of fry: The male does not like me being too close to the fry - he charges at the camera, puffing out his red throat!! There is a tear in his dorsal fin - possibly from fighting with the female. Hope you guys enjoy the pics, I'll try and update them in the next few days .

thanks for the comments.. for every single good photo, theres like a truck load of crappy ones! Ok, the little ones are now 12 days old and are growing fast. I fed them brine shrimp for the first two days, then powdered cichlid pellets. I was away for 3 days and they managed to find bits and pieces of food in the tank. :bounce: And i had another surprise tonight! The firemouths have laid their first batch of eggs!! I'll try and do a photo diary for them as well, but it may be a little difficult as their tank is not as well lit. PS: Jeff, I only saw the eggs after you left with the other pair of kribs.

an autopsy is a good idea.. you'll definitely know if they are full of eggs..

Dwarf cichlids are good - Kribs, rams or apistos. Firemouths could also be an option - add a splash of red to the tank! Not sure about how they treat the plants but a few rocks around the plant stems should prevent any plant up-rooting.

Heres an idea that I've read somewhere, but haven't used myself: Put some food (courgette) in an ice cream container and weight the container down in the tank. Once the little BNs are inside feeding, you can lift the whole container out with the BNs inside..

a shoal of corys might be nice..