firenzenz

yeah! I'm not stripping her, hence the hap fry developing. just want to make sure the fry have no predators if she spits them early as I've read that can also happen . Also read of cuckoo fry developing by themselves if not picked up.

Hmmm! Not sure what I've done. Shot on iphone and plays right side up on mac but turns upside down when sent to photobucket. I can only guess i shot it upside down and mac rights it but photobucket reads it as shot. anyone got any ideas. It is really interesting to watch these guys. tank has male empress and electra with 3 girls each. When either tries to spawn the cuckoo's appear from nowhere. What I suspect as female cuckoo will also swim around following female hap and try to get eggs straight from vent. It really is an extremely involved process to procreate, and quite funny to watch. I remove holding female straight away to holding tank as I've read the multi's will hatch in 72 hrs. So far all I have achieved is a lot of red empresses and electra fry, but I'm hopeful as At first the male haps would be quite protective but they seem to be more resigned to the interference now, and cuckoo's are definitely eating hap eggs and spawning themselves now.

yes for some reason my syno multi's have become nigriventris somewhere between here and photobucket. I'll try again.

these guys having been closer and closer to getting things right!

Fair to say that 100% ID on any would be a "best guess" situation

I rubberband the roots anubias and javafern to coral rock and wood to let them take hold for a few weeks. I think it as much as the fish feeding on any algae etc that might build up on the plant as much as the plant itself. The result is worth the hassle although as with livingart, I do have to collect the odd piece from intake.

GBA L44 comes from Paraguay where a amelanistic wildcaught male was crossed with 'normal' female, and line breeding has continued the trait by breeding in the amelanism. Any GBA from GBAXGBA cross with the brown spot or splotch is often just showing a glimpse of their distant origin. I would think any pairing as you've described could possibly produce an array of young from brown to golden although as far as I'm aware the amelanistic trait is not dominant as suggested

History would show that the introduction of a species into a new habitat usually ends in tears for the native inhabitants. Maybe the fisherman were trying to do no more than redress the mistakes made by others in a less enlightened time

Check this out. http://fish.mongabay.com/data/Philippines.htm It documents 2 Amazon loricariidae as introduced to Phillipines. They would certainly thrive in those latitudes.

I have juvies of yellows, plus a number of hap species and a few peacock species. Live in Bombay hills. As ryan suggested getting juvies and growing out into a big tank is great if you can be patient for the results. lumpheads will be very territorial with their hidey holes particularly if adversary is something like peacock or something that wants to hang out around the rockwork. A friend had a 200ltr tank with yellows, dolphins, lumpheads, a few dems and a few random mbuna and it was disaster area. a tank full of fin nipped fish continually bashing each other. About 3 mths ago, he sold off those fish and put in 4-5cm juvies( all males) of jacobfriebegi(x2) red rubins(x2) chilumba red flush(x2), copadichromis azureus(x2) and electra(x1). Also put in 8x 2cm Dems. The results are great with most of these fish colouring up really well and while they are still young there potential to coexist well when older is enhanced I believe by the tank set up as juvies and then leaving them alone and not messing with tank dynamic. There will always be some aggression levels in such a tank, but it shouldn't be hell on earth for some little bugger hiding behind a filter intake. back to your original question. I'd say it is a combination of things that would lead to peacocks dying. They would want to find a nice quite place around the rocks but continually chased off by mbuna/lumpheads. Then the bigger haps were probably scaring them off any open water you might have in An 80ltr tank and to a corner. I would say your male peacock was too busy staying uncoloured and try to stay incognito to be responsible for the girls death, unless they were trying to get into to his corner of the tank to hide also.

Variables! ie: healthy fish in healthy tank. I often go away for 3-5 days at a time no probs. The lack of bio-load from no food in a healthy tank that has healthy fish is way better than an unsupervised auto-feeder as I once found out.

They get to 20cm. Had one once and was a reAl character. In that size tank I would imagine more than one would be ok with lots of hidey hole options. Sth American too so in keeping with tank mates. They are like big plecs in that they use pectorals to tussle with others so more than one in a small tank could be a risk.

chocolate talking Cat or a few bigger clown loaches or both.

I feed mine a wide range of foods although if we are talking african I omit bloodworm, tubifex etc. otherwise- Viking cichlid X, and viking Discus granules( awesome high protein sinking food for fry) JBL Gala, JBL cichlid sticks, spiriluna wafers, shrimp pellets, Krill, nutrafin max flake. Normally mortar and pestle much of this together into container. Every now and then i make a soup with these and frozen prawns and freeze on a tray to make frozen wafers. Not recommended unless doing frequent water changes. I however must survive on toast and 2 min noodles

by 5-6cm you should start to get some evidence of bristles on males.

Change always helps. Leave them alone for a few weeks, with no water changes, feed them up, then water 50% change, maybe up the temp 2-3 degrees, change territories and see what happens.

Goldspot L001-genus-Pterygoplichtys. I've seen red sots called the same. Aquavitamins - if your fish has 10 rays on dorsal then this is your fish. Two weeks is a short time in a plecs life, so give it time.

Dither fish work with plecos also. Sort of figures that if there are a lot of tetras around then it must be safe around. if there are big predatory fish the plec will lay low until it works out they aren't a threat. If there are no tankmates they will lay low most of the time. Baby Ancistrus will smooch around without a care in the world, until they are big enough to look for their own hiding space, and the males will go for a cave as is their natural inclination. The females will take any semi seclude space nearby, my girls seem to like the heaters, internal filters etc. Sounds like your goldspot just needs to acclimatise. keep Feeding the cucumber and your guy will learn that this new place he's in aint to bad.

he may become braver with time, depending on tankmates also. They are hidey hidey though. Give him something like broccoli stalk to entice him out.

The fry should take some flake food. Do you know the fathers of both lots of fish, how likely is it that they are hybrids?

Very nice. you can see what the MH's do alright in terms of shasdows and getting light to bottom. Hope you don't mind I tweeked a couple of your shots. it was just exposure.

Or get/borrow a small 10-15ltr tank with air sponge filter and heater and put her in there in 10 days with water from her tank and she'll spit when ready. Chances of survival in current tank would be small.

Thats why it is best to have multiple females. to dissipate agression otherwise it's all put onto one female who can easily be killed. he will try with other girls for sure. What are the plans for harvesting and raising fry?

Wikipedia David? Point 2. could as easily be a definition of line breeding. "Hybridising" seems often to have a negative connotation probably because it is often a results of unplanned unions and "Inter" species. Line breeding or Outcrossing could be said to be the same thing but intentionally and with a predetermined goal, thus receiving less critiscm. Ryan -I agree that this all is reliant of knowing the history of the fish in terms of lineage. In this case, to the best of my knowlege both are Maleri species (locational variant unknown) and both probably line bred to a degree, obviously the rubins more than gold. Was just interested to hear would you guys would determine a union like this. - No I definitely wouldn't be interbreeding species within Stuartgranti complex

Aren't maleri considered one of Stuartigranti complex? A complex of species grouped together and named as much by their "discoverer" as by any other similarity. I guess my question is how far into a line can you reintroduce new blood and not cross over into a case of hybridising?