For those of you who don't already know I love animals! Within this love is my love for fish. I want to tell the story of how my love for fish and the keeping of them began ... but not today.
Today I just want to tell you about my love of cichlids. This began one summer when I was looking to buy some new fish, but not just new fish I wanted to buy the prettiest freshwater fish I could find. I ended up buying four cichlids.
Over the course of a year and a trip to Ohio and back my four cichlids became one cichlid. A friend who saw my one cichlid offered to trade my adult male for ten babies. I immediately said yes and my true love for cichlids began.
Since then I have added and removed a few fish from my tank. Recently I have had some success and disappointment with my fish. I had a red zebra pair that had 37 babies! 5 of wish I have since given away. I am going to keep 5 of them and sell the rest.
These guys are currently in my friend Jason's 55 gallon so they have some room to grow without having to worry about getting eaten by the adults.
The other kind of cichlids that I am breeding currently weren't as successful this time due to an error on my part. Cichlids lay eggs which after being fertilized are carried in the mothers mouth until they hatch. Once they hatch the mother
releases them and they are then on their own. To avoid the babies being eaten when I notice a
female is holding I move her into my 10 gallon hospital tank. Then after she releases the babies
I put a divider in between her and the babies . Once she has regained her strength I put her back in the main tank a remove the divider so the babies have the whole tank to themselves.
Well this time I didn't put the divider in right away so
instead of having about 20 chipokae babies I have 6. Having and especially breeding fish is fun, but it also is a learning experience. I would recommend it to everyone but start small!
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