Pet Forum / Aquaria / Cichlids / April 2004

I've  got a trio of red empress. 1 male and 2 females as far as I can see.
The male is very nicely coloured, a brilliant metallic blue head with a deep
red body. He's about 4-5 inches long, and he's dug himself a large breeding
pit in my 120g tank. he defends it with gusto. But he's not the problem.

the females just refuse to breed with him. he tries almost constantly to
breed with them, shimmering around them and dancing etc. but they just
aren't interested. the females are also 4-5 inches, they have no colour at
all except for the normal silver colouration with a dark horizontal line.
one of the females is as big as the male, and the other is a tad smaller.
they never ever exhibit any sort of male behaviour at all, so I am fairly
sure they are female.

I have a couple of Aulonocara in the tank that hold almost constantly, and I
have also had a batch of fry from a red zebra in the tank.

the temperature is 26 degrees celcius (you'll have to do your own conversion
to F), which is a good temp as far as I know.

so I wonder if these guys are notorious for not breeding or if I just have a
particularly frigid pair of girls?

any ideas anyone?