Stupid question no one has asked... I think

levia7han

levia7han

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#1
Aug 20, 2003
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Ok. It was late and I got thinking the other night... Cichlids are usualy good parents. And looking at my convicts I know they are pretty good too.

If you had some platty, molly, even guppy fry at about the same time as the cichlids had their fry. What would happen if you just mixed the fry. If you removed the parents for just a few seconds and then introduced the other fry.... Kind of an ugly duckling type thing.

Could the reconize their own fry well enough to remove the imposters.... do they know how to count.

Just something I thought about. I know that as the fry grow bigger that there would be problems. But for the first few weeks I wonder.

Lev
 

Somonas

Somonas

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#3
Oct 22, 2002
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#3
I've tried that with cichlid mouthbrooders, once they go back in the tank they tend to eat everything.
Some africans however like brichardis are able to tell their kids from other kids for quite a while (2 months in my experience)
 

T

TaffyFish

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Jan 30, 2003
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I've experience of this with lamp. brichardi fry. I set up a pair in a 35 gallon species only tank and they had 4 spawns over a 3 month period. I then sold the largest of the fry and removed the parents to my community tank and moved in a whole load of other fry and juveniles (cyprichromis, syno. petricola, julidochromis, ocellatus and leleupi) to set it up as a growing on tank.

The synos went straight to the rockwork and the brichardi could do little to stop them, however there was a concerted effort by the brichardi to try to keep the leleupi and julies from gaining a foothold in the rockwork, they keep the cyps to the upper water and the ocellatus to their shells in the open substrate.

This is quite remarkable behaviour when you consider they learned nothing of this territorial behaviour from their parents as it was a species only tank then - they never witnessed a parent acting territorially. I believe I also witnessed the very youngest brichardi (3-4 weeks only) doing their bit to protect the rocks. They appeared to be responding instinctively and collectively in a common interest.

Another interesting behaviour I observed was adding leleupi fry (approx. 4 weeks old, so still fry rather than small fish) 1. to the Q tank containing julie juveniles (approx 1") and 2. to the community tank with adults, juveniles and other fry.

In the Q tank, the julies immediately chased down the leleupi fry and ate them. In the community tank, the leleupi fry were allowed to share the julie cave with a pair of adults and various ages of fry/juveniles. In the latter the leleupi seemed to be protected by the parents as if their own.

I believe the lack of adults in the Q tank together with overcrowding and a lack of territories meant the basic suvival instincts like "eat or be eaten" came to the fore, whilst in the community rank the parents provided a level of protection which resulted in the juveniles and fry acting less aggressively toward each other.
 

T

TaffyFish

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#7
Jan 30, 2003
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back to the original question....;-)

there are few species that will not immediately recognise another species of fry amongst their own. The cuckoo-type spawning behaviour of, eg, synodontis multipunctatus is remarkable because it is very exceptional.

also exceptional is the telmatachromis who look very similar to the juvenile of another species (I forget which one now) and can then bluff their way into the nesting site and scoff the eggs!

....as for an ability to count....!!
 

W

wayne at home

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#8
Jan 19, 2003
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I think if you look around there are examples of this - somebody on the krib had some female apistos that were so desparate they were sheparding daphnia put in as live food.
Also aren't there examples from Lake Nicaragua of spare male 'something' helping dovii kep the fry from roaming Netroplus. This is well documented - I just need to remember what the something is 'Something nicaraguensis'?
 

S

Starbury03

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#9
Oct 7, 2003
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#9
I read that sometimes Convicts will adopt other convict fry if they are smaller then theres if bigger they will eat. My convicts when i had them u can't mess with there fry cuz they will react by eating all of there fry I had a problem with this with 2 females the male would keep eating fry to try to breed with the other female.
 

Somonas

Somonas

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#10
Oct 22, 2002
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I was talking to someone on the weekend who said when he added synodontus multipunctatus to his tank, his mbuna stopped breeding (who were breeding quite regularly before). he suspects the mbuna were spooked, because as you know the multis can be involved with mbuna spawns
 

T

TaffyFish

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Jan 30, 2003
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Interesting that Malawis could've wised up to the multipunctatus strategy, or were they keeping Tropheus as mbuna?

btw Somonas, in your sig., should line 3 start with "In" instead of "I've"? It would scan better anyway....
 

T

TaffyFish

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Jan 30, 2003
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Wake up guys, I said "as mbuna", d'oh!

the point I was trying to make is that syno multipunctatus is a Lake Tang species so it would be very interesting that mbuna (from Lake Malawi) would know about, much less wise to, the egg replacement strategy. Unless, as some fishkeepers do, they keep Tropheus with their mbuna, in which case the Tropheus would have knowledge of the multi's cuckoo spawning.

This runs contrary to evidence that fishkeepers wishing to get multipunctatus to spawn seem to have more success with the less knowledgable Malawi haps than with Tangs - who have learned to be wary of the syno.
 

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