My Malawi's are breeding

I've had my malawi setup for about 9 months now and they have not been the easiest months for the fish. Moving house in December was tough on them.

I was surprised a couple weeks ago when I notice one of my albino red top zebras not eating. On closer inspection I noticed she was holding - now I know she is definitely a "she". A couple days later, one of the acei did the same thing.

My setup is a community tank with many species and I was worries the females would get too harassed. As this is my first time with breeding malawi's I wanted to maximise the chances for the little guys that were due to arrive. I had one small tank that I setup as a fry tank. I then placed both holding females in this tank, but the albino was not happy sharing the space with the acei. I built another 38 litre tank and now each female has it's own home to care for her eggs in peace.

So far they have been holding for almost 2 weeks, so I should see some free swimming fry soon.

If the fish are successful at producing a good crop of offspring, I am going to have to find new homes for the youngsters. I may also start some species tanks, but the wife will not be happy with me for taking up more space in the house.

 

Hi

Congrats on your spawn,you should keep an eye out to see if the female's carries through the whole four weeks if so then all is good but if they do swallow the eggs then maybe next time you should look at stripping them at about 14 days,as that is what i do if i know a female is known for not carrying through the whole period.

 

stripping them at about 14 days, ?
How do you go about that ?
Sorry for the tread jack

 

Hi All

Nice @SethD, well 2 of my Acei female are holding for about 1 week now, I unfortunately do not have a Fry tank, so will see what survives in the tank.

 

Hi

You can have a look on youtube how to correctly strip the females if necessary

 

Thanks but won't that bring up a lot of porn ? Lol

 

Lol Might if you use the incorrect phrasing

 

Hi all,

well, I stripped the females on Friday and for the first time all went well.

The acei had 36 fry in her mouth, and they had just finished their yoke sacks, so they were due to start exporing.

The albino only had 10 fry, 1 did not make it past 2 days. During the stripping process, once I was almost finished, she got out of my hand and quickly picked up all the fry, so I had to repeat the process. They still had fairly large yokes, so I quickly make up a temporary tumbler from a used plastic soft drink bottle, which worked quite well. The albino female somehow swallowed a lot of air during the process, so she struggles to swim afterwards as she kept rising to the surface. She recovered after a couple hours.

Both females are back in the main tank now and have fattened up again. Fry are doing well - all 36 acei are still alive and are gobbling up the ground up food I'm feeding them (a mixture of home made vegetable pellets, Ocean Nutrition Vegetable pellets & egg yoke) Some home make infusoria will be ready today or tomorrow to help supplement their diet.

 

@SethD, what is the recommended size for a tank for the fry. I am stripping my first female this weekend> I am unsure of the size of a tank I should use. Secondly I could just leave them in the tank to fend for themselves, but my Compresiceps and Venustus would surely have a nice meal. Oh the filters as well

 

From what I've read, a 10 Gal or 38 Litre tank is what you could use. I am using a slightly smaller tank (45cm x 23cm x 23cm) that I got from my brother in law. This size is working fine for me. As they grow it should be fine until they are a couple cms long.

Filtration is a sponge filter driven by a small air pump, both relatively cheap and easy to come by. be sure to get your beneficial bacteria going before the fry arrive. I managed to accelerate the cycling process by using some filter floss from another filter I had running.

BTW, my venustus's/venusti (about 75mm long) managed to eat one of my juvenile compressiceps (about 35mm long) last night, so I'm sure they will make short work of fry left in the main tank.