Peacock Cichlid Fry

One of our peacock cichlids (Aulonocara sp.) was looking a bit odd a few days ago. It was not opening it’s mouth and it’s mouth was quite full. After observing the fish for a while, we decided that the most probable reason was that the fish was a “she” and that she was mouth-brooding.

We moved her into our rehabilitation tank so that she could brood without being hassled by the other fish.

Now, about 7 days later, there are little cichlid fry swimming around in the tank. Some of them are not doing so well (one is curled and wriggles around the tank without much control) and the rest hang around the filter. In all, I have counted eight fry and she looks like her mouth is still full.

The filter in the rehab tank is probably not the best for the tank. I’d like to get a trickle filter for this tank so that the fry are at lower risk.

Aulonocara sp. fry with mother

We now have another peacock in the tank that is looking a bit full mouthed too. It looks like we’ll have to move another fish into the rehab tank too … or set up another one.

We have set up another tank for the second mouth brooding peacock cichlid. The tank has almost no tank furniture in it. Just a filter, a heater, some gravel and a pot. We got the tank water up to the same temperature as the main tank (added hot water and then cooled it down with some ice-packs). Then we set about catching the broody mother. She wasn’t that hard to catch once we removed the furniture from the main tank.

When we released the mother cichlid into the new tank, she was very stressed and so she spat out most of her eggs and hid. She was still carrying several eggs in her mouth at this stage, so we put a cover on the tank and let things settle down.

This morning, the mother cichlid has collected all but about 7 of her eggs and is hiding behind the pot in her tank. The 7 or so eggs that are still in the tank are looking a bit cloudy, so I’d say that they have perished.

In the other brooder tank, there are now about 15 peacock cichlid fry. About half of them are solid yellow in colour, whereas the remainder are banded. I suppose that, because this species is a hybrid, that they are going to reflect the genetics of the parent as well as the grandparent species, so it will be hard to predict the mature colour and patterning.

I will transfer the fry into the first brooder tank and the mothers into the second brooder tank in about a week. This will give the fry somewhere to mature while giving the mother cichlids somewhere to recover. If I put the females back into the main tank straight away, they will mate again.

Because the broody mother does not eat for the duration of the hatching, and for some time after the fry emerge, I need to give them some recovery time so that they don’t starve themselves to death. Also, for mating and brooding, the females need some energy reserves and they won’t do that while looking after their young.

So far, so good. Only two of our mouth brooders have mated, so we only need two brooder tanks. Hopefully, the cycle of brooder tank to rehabilitation tank for the mother will work out well. Although, I’d like to get a bigger tank for the fry and set that tank up with a better filter. I would also start out with no substrate (no gravel) in the tank and slowly add rocks for hiding places for the fry as they mature. Well, we live and learn.