Pet Forum / Aquaria / Cichlids / April 2005

Hi,

I've had good experience lately with my yellow labs spawning in my 75 gallon
community tank. After the first female spawned, I removed her to a well
planted 10 gallon tank and eventually noticed 5 babies swimming around the
rocks. I returned the female to the community tank, and moved a second
female that was also holding eggs into the tank with the fry from the first
female(I only have two tanks). As the second female was carrying eggs and
had no apetite, she co-existed well with the 5 fry. She is at the point
where she is still holding most of her fry, but a few have escaped her
mouth. She seems very interested in recovering her fry, but they seem to be
afraid of her and run when she attempts to re-capture them. Is this typical
behavior among yellow labs? Interestingly, the female's maternal instincts
are also directed toward the original 5 fry which are twice the size of the
new guys, and definitely don't want to be in her mouth!  The only other
africans that I've had spawn were malonochromis johanni many years ago, and
as I recall, the fry would swim back into the mother's mouth when she gave
them a "signal"and opened her mouth. These fry seem to want nothing to do
with mother once they leave her mouth.

BTW, I enjoy the posts made to this group.

Gary K.