Hecticity

I found that male and female are easier to tell apart as they get a bit bigger as body shape...head slope, width and girth are quite different between the two, as well as colour with the female being more blue and the male more silver gold. Could just be mine though. Pics....?

Had a few issues...!! ^ Finally a few pics. Have them divided at the moment, male's a bit full on. Not much extra length yet just a bit of body shape changes.

HFF Mt Roskill had six or so a few months back, I picked up one, all looked to be male to me but still smallish. Around the 50mm mark.

As per title. Approx. 100mm - 120mm. Not really after much, just a good home. Questions welcome.

I have a trio, very cool little fish, always out looking for food when I am around. Thought my male was mouth brooding for a while, but either spat the eggs or ate them, following this my dominant female (the one one who released eggs i'm guessing due to her loss of roundness ) lost her position as top dog and my other female has plumped up and taken on intense colouration. Have handle 75% weekly water changes and a pH of around 7.

Looking good! I had a second batch of fry a coupe of months ago..few stragglers hanging around. Not really putting much effort in due to tank space and market for selling. Mine have both slowed in growth and are around the same size as yours. Not to bothered though be interesting to see in a few years. Have had to separate mine as the male is getting a bit intense wanting to breed and dominate my placid girl, currently making a divider for the tank.... Will try and get a few picks up soon.

Both are potentially fine, zebras possibly like cooler temps than both tetra species...maybe have a google, embers may be a little less outgoing than cardinals as well. I think zebras are are a pretty active species. plenty of room though with decent filtration and frequent water changes.

If I was to breed them in their own tank I would leave the fry with them until a decent size, but if I bred them in the community set up I would separate from free swimmers. I have a 190 odd litre tank I could try as a breeder but not sure if I really want to put them in that small a tank. Yeah my female seems to be growing a lot slower now compared to my male. 7 inches is about what I was expecting for the fem, hopefully the boy gets close to 10 inches, which is what I have seen looking online as being max. Pretty sure i've seen posts of 12 inch males on MFK though. How much bigger is the hybrid? I'd give it a go so long as you can watch them for a bit when you put them together, and they have a few hiding spots. Any photos of either...?

Had a swarm of a couple of hundred but went away for a few days and lost them. They have started dancing a bit again so might chuck the pot back in. My boy is definitely growing faster about 5.5 inches / 140mm. Fem close to 6 inches / 150mm. What is up with the whole inch gallon scenario in fish keeping.... Surely the majority worldwide use the metric system by now..?

Cheers! Definitely not the first. Im pretty sure other forum members have bred them in the past. Would be good to hear of some experiences...

Male is around 4 - 4.5 inches, female around 5. Yeah will be interesting to see what happens. I do have another tank but was thinking of just using it as a growout. Hopefully they stay mellow....... Tank Shot. Pot Shot. Guard Dog.

Thanks, yeah they are best mates at the moment. Female just started laying eggs this morning....! You can see her egg tube in the last photos. Be interesting to see if they make it...

Awesome Fruju...! Wheres the pictures? Feel like mine are growing fairly slowly, hard to tell though when you look at them every day. A few pics from today..........

Yeah I'm really liking them! Bit of a community tank at the moment. 2X Silver sharks, 2X firemouth, 3X clown loaches and 3X striata loaches with them. Tanks about 570 litres from memory. Java fern has been going for a few years now, need to actually give it a bit of a prune... Ha cheers! yeah I'm pretty confident that's the case sex wise... Had a bit of scraping the last couple of days, lip locking etc. Obviously will separate if it gets to bad but just wondering whats normal as this is my first go with cichlids this large. Obviously its the smaller "male" instigating these confrontations :roll: ...and losing time after time...

Couple of quick pics, hard to get decent ones.....

My two are in the same tank as of this afternoon. So far so good. Small one acting like an over protective boyfriend.... Now leaning towards larger one being female, smaller male. But who knows, time will tell I guess. Photos in the next few days....

I've found mine have changed between more and less black in fins and on underside occasionally. They seem so hard to sex in my experience. Have been wanting to introduce my two for a while now to see if it helps at all but haven't got round to it yet...Maybe this weekend... Awesome fish though, mine a very interactive and seem pretty mellow towards my other fish so far. A link to some pics would be cool if you can't figure out how to post them on here....

Yeah have been thinking that myself, might try them together next weekend. Should be interesting! No more at Mt Roskill.

Dorsal shape seems to be more pointed in large males, have seen photos of breeders without though. Growing my two out separately at the moment, trying to get some decent size on them. Quite tempted to put them together to see if sex becomes more apparent but think I will wait till they are more of a similar size, smaller one is pretty small still....

Couple of shots from today. Both showing "male dorsals", not sure what to think at this stage.

That is the one from Albany, kind of what I was meaning about changing colouration/patterning etc...

Both mine seem to change colouration quite frequently, dorsal fin blackness etc. so will probably just be a waiting game to see as they get bigger, and maybe with introduction. Aggression levels seem pretty minimal at the moment, ones in with firemouths, sharks loaches and chases the firemouths a bit around feeding but nothing to major.

Have noticed a bit of talk and interest since the last batch of Cuban cichlids came in. Just wondering how many people on the forum have one or some..? Am growing out two at the moment and am still undecided on sex of both but leaning towards male and female at the moment, so hard to tell though. Would love to see pics of anyone else's, here are a couple of my two both in the first week of purchase. Will get some up to date ones this weekend.. First one smaller potential female, second larger potential male. Partial tank shot of potential male tank.