Polleni spawned!

[YoungAquaticPhotos]

So just when I was giving up on them they spawned. I was supposed to give them to a guy at NJAS at the auction, however I got called away to Florida with my Father-in-law who had Pneumonia and did not go to the auction. I moved the pair temporarily into a 75 by themselves until I can get them to NJAS.
I got home at 1am and only fed the fish and removed a dead one from the 265.
So when I just got home from work I looked over at the 75. I see the female moving this orange thing around in the tank. I look at the 90 above and start counting my Firefish thinking one jumped out. I count all 5 then I get a net and scoop up what I thought was a dead fish and low and behold it is a clump of eggs! Now what do I do with them? Since the mom was either eating them or dragging them around I placed a small cup in there and collected them. I filled up a 1 gallon bucket and placed them in it. What do I do now add an air stone, meth blue?

Thanks!
Ed

[fischfan13]

Sounds almost like raising Angels...

Unfortunately, Madagascan cichlids are notorious for eating their eggs in captivity, which certainly does not help their endangered status. It is, therefore, essential to remove most of the eggs to be hatched artificially in another tank and this is how Dave and I have succeeded in raising P. polleni fry. He has constructed an artificial hatcher similar to the one pictured in Ad Koning's book, "Enjoying Cichlids" and it works very well. Methylene Blue was added to the water in the hatching tank to prevent the eggs from fungusing and the temperature was maintained at about 27° C (81° F).

The fry will hatch after two or three days and should be free-swimming after another seven days. As they are so tiny, they will need to be fed on microscopic food like Waterlife Invert food or OSI Fry food. They grow quickly and should soon be able to take baby brine shrimp and cyclops. Raising the fry from the last P. polleni spawning, I noticed that quite a lot of cannibalization occurred but at least, this disposed of the runts who would not have survived very long in nature anyway.

The remaining babies continued to grow well. If any readers encounter either species at any Aquatic stores, why not consider keeping them, as they are fairly easy to maintain and are extremely attactive fish, although quite a challenge when it comes to spawning? Not only that, you will be assisting conservation and perhaps helping to save these gorgeous Madagascan fishes from eventual extinction.

[YoungAquaticPhotos]

But they look like Caviar! LOL!

[Sharpfish]

Congrats, that is outstanding to hear! I think the one problem in run into was you must maintain water quality. Be diligent, keep up the maintaince. Mine have begun to dig spawning pits again but nothing yet. Keep the updated posts coming. Wally

[emartin]

Bill where did you copy excerpt from on hatching Madagascan eggs?

[fischfan13]

http://www.cichlidae.com/article.php?id=117

[YoungAquaticPhotos]

How do you make the artificial hatcher?

[YoungAquaticPhotos]

Well I emailed Dr. Paul Loiselle and here is his reply to my spawning:
Congratulations! Female P. polleni do move their egg mass around, so the behavior you saw was perfectly normal. What you are doing is standard for artificially hatching the eggs of substratum-spawning cichlids and should work quite well for this species. The fry should be free-swimming 3-4 days post-hatching at a temperature of ~78’ F. and they are large enough to take newly hatched brine shrimp for their first food. You can introduce them to finely powdered flake foods about a week later. They are rather slow-growing relative to most West African and Neotropical cichlids but aside from that, rearing them is not particularly difficult. Just out of curiosity, are your fish large spot [the real P. polleni] or small spot [the as yet undescribed Paratilapia sp. Fony]?

Ho ela velona!

Paul

[JonV]

Actually I was going to ask the same thing about the excerpt when I saw the posting yesterday. I have the small spots myself, almost a year now and growing still. I have 7 and a few are getting much darker then the others. I am not sure if this is indicative of the sex or just a dominance thing. I am considering rehousing the darker ones in other tanks and see if there are any changes in the coloring of the more plain looking ones.

I have only had my Pytchochromis Oligocanthus spawn for a substrate spawner. Two times there have been eggs laid, the second time did result in some free swimming fry, but they were eaten by the bottom feeders during the night. While this is my only species I have had spawn, and I only have 2 different Madagascar substraters, and even more so limited in experience, just based on what I have seen, I would not so readily agree with the findings in that link. I'm not saying it can't happen, I just haven't witnessed anything like what was posted about the Madagascars eating up their eggs. I did read this article months ago when doing research before getting the Oligocanthus. I will be keeping an eye out to see if this occurs or not myself.

I can say as what Dr. Loiselle pointed out, there are other documents on the net indicating the use of artificial hatching of eggs, and is just short of being reccomended in doing so. I do wish you the best of luck with this and hope all works out. Would love to see some progress pictures of your fry every month or so.

I've had my Polleni for almost a year now, I think I got my 7 last June? Something like that and were rather small. Since the time I've had mine, they have more then doubled in size and half of them are fairly black. What I have seen in this species as well, the onset of them turning black is gradual. You'll see it mostly take form at night and when you turn the lights on in the tank, they will stay black for a bit of time and then go back to the grey look. As they age, the black will stay longer and longer in the day until the black never fades back into the grey. They do appear to grow a bit slow by comparison to Mbuna or Haps.

[YoungAquaticPhotos]

I sent the doc some pics of mine and here is what he says I have:

Dear ed,

You definitely have the East Coast small spot species, which I refer to by the cheironym Paratilapia sp. Fony, fony being the Malagasy name for the fish.

Ho ela velona!

Paul

[AlishanAS]

Another pair of my fish that Ed spawns. Hurry over and get the Triglachromis.
I'll have to give you the trio of menarambo next.....

[JonV]

Damn Alishan, if I'd known you had Menarambo's I'd have come looking. I can't tell you how long I've been hunting this species at a price that isn't so high to dent a fixed budget! Figures that's my luck. I've been torn between either making my 180 the main tank for either wild caught Fronts or Menarambo's but I just can't seem to find a reasonably priced set of Menarambo's and mostly why I got the Oligocanthus instead. If you happen to have any fry I wouldn't even mind growing them out.

[Sharpfish]

Does your pair of P.sp. fony resemble my pair here. I want to make sure I am using the proper assigned name.


A secondary pair of Paratlapia polleni. Female in front, male in back.
http://i357.photobucket.com/albums/oo13/sharpfish/fish2077.jpg

[YoungAquaticPhotos]

What do you think?
Here is my male:

http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e325/YoungAquaticPhotos/DSC_0872Paratilapia.jpg

[YoungAquaticPhotos]

Sorry Tom forgot about the trigs. I guess I will get them Saturday.

[AlishanAS]

Any updates Ed?

[YoungAquaticPhotos]

Still got orange eggs with dots in them now! Might be hatching tomorrow!

[AlishanAS]

Do you have fry Ed?

[YoungAquaticPhotos]

I forgot to post it! They all fungused. Next batch I am leaving in the tank for them to raise.

[Sharpfish]

What do you think?
Here is my male:

http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e325/YoungAquaticPhotos/DSC_0872Paratilapia.jpg

I am not sure they are the same your male has the tan or yellow down the slope of the forehead. Mine are completely black with the spangles. My pair spawned again. However, they ate the eggs this time instead of it being my blunder. It wasn't even 24 hrs. after the initial spawn and the eggs were gone. can you forward the picture of my pair to Paul for species verification. I really want to know what the proper species name is going to be. Thanks Wally

[YoungAquaticPhotos]

I just sent you pic to Dr. Loiselle. Hopefully he will get back to me today.

[YoungAquaticPhotos]

I got his answer:


Dear Ed,

The fish look like a nice pair of East Coast small spot Paratilapia – just like yours.

Ho ela velona!

Paul

[Sharpfish]

Thanks Ed. I appreciate the assist on the information. Thanks Wally