L. Brichardi spawned; help with fry!

Randy Pafford

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Sep 1, 1994, 10:00:23 PM9/1/94

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I have a 30 gallon Tanganyikan tank populated with:

- four Lamprologus Brichardi,
- one Lamprologus daffodil [Baensch notes daffodils are
quite possibly color morphs of Brichardi],
- one Lamprologus Moori,
- one Lamprologus Leleupi,
- one Lamprologus Tretocephalus,
- one Juliochromis Marlieri,
- one medium-sized pleco,
- one Synodontis catfish (unsure of species).

All the cichlids are fully grown except two of the Brichardi.

The tank has been setup for well over a year, with no changes over the
last four to six months. All fish are healthy and show good color.

Much to my surprise, last Saturday night we observed some very small
L. Brichardi being guarded by one of the Brichardi and the daffodil.
I was surprised the Brichardi and daffodil spawned rather than two of
the brichardi. At this point Thursday night I see six or seven fry
left, all about 1/4 inch long. I have the following questions:

1) What should I do to maximize the chances of the fry surviving?
The parents are big enough to handle any fish in the tank, but
it will quite a while before the fry are safe from being a snack.
I am particularly concerned about the synodontis roaming around
at night. The fry do have a narrow cave they can hide in
where the larger fish can't go.

2) What are these fry eating? Do I need to do anything special
to get them more food? How fast will they grow?

3) Any estimates on how many fry I started with? The parents were
fully mature. I saw as many as 12 fry Saturday night, but the
numbers have dwindled a bit.

4) Is there anything in particular I *shouldn't* do? For fear
of disrupting the tank, thus far I haven't done anything
different with it.

I should note that it would be extremely difficult to remove any of the
fish from this rock-filled [large rocks] tank without causing major havoc,
and probably winding up with the fry spread-out all over the tank.

Any help is much appreciated. I would like for at least a couple of the
fry to survive, plus I'm quite curious to see what the mixture of the
daffodil and brichardi will look like.

Randy

Erik Olson

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Sep 2, 1994, 12:22:20 PM9/2/94

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paf...@dg-rtp.dg.com (Randy Pafford) writes:

>I have a 30 gallon Tanganyikan tank populated with:

> - four Lamprologus Brichardi,
> - one Lamprologus daffodil [Baensch notes daffodils are
> quite possibly color morphs of Brichardi],
> - one Lamprologus Moori,
> - one Lamprologus Leleupi,
> - one Lamprologus Tretocephalus,
> - one Juliochromis Marlieri,
> - one medium-sized pleco,
> - one Synodontis catfish (unsure of species).

>Much to my surprise, last Saturday night we observed some very small

>L. Brichardi being guarded by one of the Brichardi and the daffodil.

Welcome to the club!

> 1) What should I do to maximize the chances of the fry surviving?

Take out the other fish besides the parents, or the parents themselves to
REALLY maximize it. Impractical, I would agree.

> 2) What are these fry eating? Do I need to do anything special
> to get them more food? How fast will they grow?

Probably algae growing on the rocks. I feed all my tanganyikans mostly flake
food, and when I see a new spawn I make sure to crinkle some of it up into
small bits.

>I should note that it would be extremely difficult to remove any of the
>fish from this rock-filled [large rocks] tank without causing major havoc,
>and probably winding up with the fry spread-out all over the tank.

Yeah, leave them alone, at least this round. Now you know who's the pair,
they'll spawn again in a month or so. I don't do ANYTHING to my 60gallon
tank (4 daffodil, 5 J. marlieri), and 5-10 survive from each spawn.
It's sheer pain tearing out all the rocks to capture the juveniles to sell
(or donate, in my case. Seems they don't want any in my area.)

(Massive editorial on the evils of selling hybrid fish witheld. :)

- Erik
--
---
Erik D. Olson The Thes-o-meter:
ol...@phys.washington.edu 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 A B C D E F G
at home, of course! | - | / / | - - - | / X

Jack Peters

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Sep 2, 1994, 12:10:24 PM9/2/94

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First off, if one brichardi and one daffodil are guarding them, does that mean
that those are the parents. If so, you have hybrids, and most Cichlid
keepers feel that it is better to dispose of hybrids. You could syphon them
out of the tank if you want to keep them from being eaten by the other fish,
but make sure you keep them with water from their original tank. You could
feed them microworms or baby brine shrimp or maybe just powdered flake food.

Mark Kaprow

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Sep 2, 1994, 2:30:52 PM9/2/94

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In article <1994Sep2.0...@dg-rtp.dg.com>,

Randy Pafford <paf...@dg-rtp.dg.com> wrote:
>I have a 30 gallon Tanganyikan tank populated with:

>[9 tanganyikans, one synodontis, one pleco]

>Much to my surprise, last Saturday night we observed some very small
>L. Brichardi being guarded by one of the Brichardi and the daffodil.
>I was surprised the Brichardi and daffodil spawned rather than two of
>the brichardi. At this point Thursday night I see six or seven fry
>left, all about 1/4 inch long. I have the following questions:
> 1) What should I do to maximize the chances of the fry surviving?

Remove them from the tank. Otherwise, you will probably not end up with
more than one. THis is based on experience.

> 2) What are these fry eating? Do I need to do anything special
> to get them more food? How fast will they grow?

It would be good to squirt newly hatched brine shrimp into their area
(use a turkey baster /rinse the newly hatched shrimp). Be sure to squirt
the brine shrimp all over too. Adult tanganyikans eat them too. They
grow medium fast--reach full size in about a year.

> 3) Any estimates on how many fry I started with? The parents were

I usually get 60 fry per spawn, but could get 50% more or less.

> 4) Is there anything in particular I *shouldn't* do? For fear
> of disrupting the tank, thus far I haven't done anything
> different with it.
>

If you do nothing, you may end up with no fry. A good suggestion would
be to set up a separate 20L for these fish and let them go at it.

I am of the opinion that the brichardi "dafodil" is a color morph of the
brichardi species.

--
|~~o~ ~///~~~~~~~Mark Kaprow~~~~~~~~~~~~|
| o /@ `\ /) ~ mk...@access.digex.net |
| > ) .. X< ~ |
~~~\___/' \) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

cis productions

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Sep 3, 1994, 10:49:29 PM9/3/94

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>I am of the opinion that the brichardi "dafodil" is a color morph of
>the brichardi species.

may very well be, but how do you account for the "double gill-bars"
on daffodils and single ones on brichardi?

--

[invisible sig.....just add water.]

Randy Pafford

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Sep 6, 1994, 2:59:56 PM9/6/94

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Uh, if I took out the parents the fry would be lunch shortly thereafter.
The parents don't seem prone to hurt the fry. I might have a shot at
pulling a couple of the other fish out.

Ok, that's pretty much what I'm doing. Small flakes and the like. The
books I have say to feed them often, and warn this will require lots of
water changes.

|>
|> >I should note that it would be extremely difficult to remove any of the
|> >fish from this rock-filled [large rocks] tank without causing major havoc,
|> >and probably winding up with the fry spread-out all over the tank.
|>
|> Yeah, leave them alone, at least this round. Now you know who's the pair,
|> they'll spawn again in a month or so. I don't do ANYTHING to my 60gallon

Well, there was a new development here. Last night I noticed that
the two parents were letting another Brichardi roam around the nursery
area. Upon closer examination, I noticed that there is a new batch of
very small fry in the same area [I don't know if the older fry are big
enough to eat the younger fry . . . ]. Due to the presence of the
third fish near the fry, I thus conclude that the male parent of the older
fry mated again with another female brichardi. Although the new parent
is free to roam the area, it isn't actively defending the territory. That
is left to the other two parents [who are bigger, also].

|> tank (4 daffodil, 5 J. marlieri), and 5-10 survive from each spawn.
|> It's sheer pain tearing out all the rocks to capture the juveniles to sell
|> (or donate, in my case. Seems they don't want any in my area.)
|>
|> (Massive editorial on the evils of selling hybrid fish witheld. :)

Right, I thought of that. I don't know what I"m going to do with the
survivors. The tank is overcrowded already [I was thinking about removing
the daffodil before this happens] so I do have to remove the new additions
at some point. Right now the tank, which was relatively trouble-free even
with the overcrowding [the Brichardi being schooling fish, after all] is
a good deal more chaotic, with the parents carving out a large area in the
back center of the tank, crowding the rest of the occupants somewhat.

Perhaps I'll remove the two original parents to a another tank when
the fry have a chance at surviving. Unfortunately, the only other tank
I have is a 10 gallon. But that may be big enough for two Brichardi.

Randy

Mark Kaprow

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Sep 9, 1994, 3:43:39 PM9/9/94

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Brichardi will allow earlier spawns to coexist with later spawns, and in
fact the older siblings will participate in defending the territory.

|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|
| o /// Mark Kaprow |

| o /@ `\ /) ~ mk...@access.digex.net |
| > ) .. X< ~ |

| `\___/' \) ~ |
| \\ ___ |
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~